Hi everyone,
Last night we spent our final night in Banff at the movies where we saw
‘Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret’. I think Rob enjoyed it more than
he thought he would as it was pretty funny! There wasn’t much else on.
Then we had dinner at a pub where Rob had a chicken Parma (there are so many
Aussies in Banff it’s served in some restaurants) and I had a flatbread with elk
meat and some roasted vegetables. Afterwards we went for a final walk in
Banff, and we both commented how sad we are that the national parks
sections of our holiday is over. But we have lots of other exciting
places still to visit!
We set off at about 8am today and sadly the Rockies were still covered
in clouds today, but slightly less than yesterday. We went through
Canmore briefly to see a bit of the mountains, and then continued on to Calgary. En route we saw some
elk on the freeway, and we agreed that the fences and wildlife
bridges here are a good idea until wildlife still get onto the road somehow and then have
trouble finding a way off of it. We saw them building a wildlife bridge
further on down the road.
Later on in our drive we could see part of the 1988 Olympic precinct,
the ski jump, from the Winter Olympics of that year. It looked a little
depressing these days though as it was surrounded by many new freeways
being built and by lots of cookie cutter houses as far as the eye could
see along the freeway. It reminded us of Clyde at home.
We dropped our hire car off at Calgary Airport around 10am. In the ten
days we had this car, we drove 1860km. It was a Hyundai Elantra and we
were surprised by how nice it was to drive. We then caught the public
bus into town. Yes that’s right. There is another city in the top ten
most liveable in the world without an airport train - not just
Melbourne!!
We left our bags at our hotel as it was too early to check in and then caught the light rail to Calgary Zoo. Adam and Rhiannon had been here a few days ago and particularly enjoyed the Canadian section, but unfortunately for us it had closed a few days ago. So the bears, moose, cougar etc that we were most excited to see were all off display which was disappointing. However, our first stop was the penguin exhibit and the penguins made up for it already. The zoo had Humboldt, Rockhopper, Gentoo and King Penguins, and the King Penguins were very cheeky! The pool they could swim in came up to my eye level and you could walk right up to the glass. We were all standing there watching and a penguin swam right past and lined the girl up next to me, splashing her square in the face using its flipper. She screamed like bloody murder! Rob and I then moved down to watch other penguins, and then a group of girls stood at the front. He did the same thing to them but four times in a row, and watching them flee and scream in all directions made us both laugh so hard we cried and couldn't breathe. It was like they were running from an axe murderer!!!
Many other enclosures allowed us to be unbelievably close to the animals, we couldn't believe how trusting the zoo was. When we visited the hippo enclosure we were standing close by again, and the male sprayed its poo all over the female, nearly copping a kid standing at the front in the face! Everyone (including us this time!) ran. We stood back after this point and watched the hippo have its teeth cleaned. We saw lots of other animals, but a stand out was the red panda exhibit. At Melbourne Zoo, the red panda mostly sits in its tree and doesn't move much. The four red pandas on display here put on a real show for us, play fighting, climbing, eating and running around. They were very cute! I took some great photos using my camera zoom of them. We had lunch at the zoo and both agreed that despite the Canadian section being closed we had enjoyed walking around at a leisurely pace. Most weeks at home we don't get to spend much time together as our schedules don't line up well. It's really nice being over here together doing touristy things and "normal" things too (movies, zoo etc).
Afterwards, we caught the light rail down to the Calgary Stampede grounds. Since 2012, the Calgary Stampede has taken place here in July and is the world's biggest rodeo. The area had a showgrounds or Olympic park sort of vibe to it, quiet today as we were the only tourists walking around, but lots of work going on to get it ready for July 7 this year. We saw GMC Stadium which was currently being used for wildfire evacuees, the Saddledome and a brand new stadium being built. We also saw quite a few interesting sculptures of people riding horses and a man and a woman looking off into the distance which signified life in the Canadian Prairies. As well as the Calgary Stampede, the Seed and Grain Expo has been held in this area since 1886. I'm sure we will learn a bit more about it all tomorrow on a walking tour we are doing.
Tonight, Rob has gone to an F45 class and I am going to read in the room. It's really nice to have some down time after another good day.
Love to all
Claire
Xoxox
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