In which Roz and Layla walk and walk and walk (and drink tea)

By Roz

Next morning I blithely set our alarms for a little later (7.30 - the luxury) confident that our bus pick-up wasn't till 8.45. It was thus disappointing to receive a tetchy phone call whilst we were eating our breakfast informing us that our pick-up was at 8.15 and we were 20 minutes late and we were keeping everyone waiting. This kind of error is most unlike me and I felt mortified as we ran along the road to catch it. 

Mortification diminished however as we left Banff and headed through the mountains to a place called Lake Louise (attractive mountains puts things in proportion). It's known for being a beautiful area and for having been named after Queen Victoria's fourth daughter (who very ungratefully never visited). We were the only people to hop off the bus the (everyone else was heading to the ice fields to walk on a glacier) and thus I felt enabled to force Layla to wait an unfeasibly long time whilst I got a cup of tea (which was of no interest to her). Thus fortified we began a walk through the forest to the highest teahouse in Canada (or possibly North America - I should have read the guidebook more carefully). More tea, you say? Why yes, what could be more appropriate for an English girl abroad! 

The hike up was lovely, other than disappointingly uphill. This could have been anticipated by the canny hiker. Sadly I was focussed on the tea and only worked this out half way up. This is all the more unfortunate for me as Layla and I have a deal that I carry the rucksack uphill and she carries it when we are in the flat or going downhill. When I made this deal I thought it would work out well for me.  Alas I was wrong. We passed increasingly fat chipmunks (which gave me much hope for the glory of the teahouse) and eventually arrived at a beautifully blue lake overlooked by the famed teahouse. (Lakes in Canada are proving to be bluer than I ever thought water could be which is both lovely and puzzling.) We'd been supplied with sandwiches by our tour company and we consumed these fast before settling down in the teahouse for tea and suchlike (the suchlike obviously covers a multitude of food sins) whilst we read our books. I was captivated by mine - set in Papua New Guinea - and eventually Layla had to drag me away from my seat to walk back.  Alas we'd been seduced by the idea of doing a loop to get back to Lake Louise. This loop - though delightful - proved to have more uphill than I would have liked (including going up and over a little mountain in our path), but it finished walking along the brilliant blue Lake Louise and surrounded by mountains which was very lovely. We found that all of this had taken far longer than we'd anticipated and by the time we got back, our bus pickup was only 15 minutes away. We thus ditched my fantasy of scones and tea in the fancy Fairmont Hotel in favour of crisps and a beer. Not a terrible exchange... Back in Banff we collapsed on our beds before going out for a pizza.

We woke up on Wednesday conscious that it was our last day in Banff. I looked woeful till Layla reminded me that we are visiting 8 other places on this holiday so our trip is far from over.  But there's clearly no better way to ward off almost woe than going to a mad hot springs up a mountain and so that is exactly what we did. We got the bus up and were slightly disconcerted to be the only people getting off the bus at this stop (can it be that not everyone thinks a random hot spring is the way to spend a morning?) but went in regardless. It turned out to be very cheery (if not exactly popular) and it was fun to be in an outdoor hot spring at the top of a mountain. Having been boiled in a lobster-esque fashion, we got the bus down again and returned to my favourite coffee shop to read and have lunch. Back at our hotel too early for the pick-up for our bus to our next destination - Jasper - we started worrying that the pick-up wouldn't turn up or indeed that we'd got the time wrong (again). Alas the former turned out to be true and there was too much pfaff for my taste before we found ourselves on a (now delayed) bus to Jasper. But the bus journey turned out to be fun, taking us through ice fields (apparently one of the most beautiful drives in Canada) and past bears (three - including two cubs) and some elks. We eventually arrived into Jasper in the early evening, having found the bus much more fun than we'd anticipated. Having checked into our guesthouse (run by an over-enthusiastic Welsh woman who was very excited to find we were from the UK and who said I seemed too outgoing - did this mean loud? - to be a diplomat) we went out for a delicious, if not cheap, dinner. On the way home, we popped into a supermarket to buy breakfast for the morning and I remembered my love of ice wine - acquired on our first trip to Canada. So we acquired a couple of miniatures and headed home to enjoy them. 

Next morning our plan was a hike in the nearby environs and then to settle down in a cafe to read. This plan would have worked well had we not managed to misunderstand the length of the hiking endeavor we had settled on. We had our doubts as the cab drove for 20 or so minutes into the mountains before depositing us at a trailhead (our plan being to walk back into town from there). But we stifled these and set off past more beautiful blue lakes (with an occasional bit of singing to ward off bears). 2 and a half hours in I felt glad we had acquired lunch before setting off and we consumed it. 4 hours in and I was getting a bit tired (not least because there was more uphill than I had hoped). But the views were lovely so when, at hour 4 and a half, Layla suggested we add an extra loop on to take in another lake which had a hotel with tea, I said yes. Alas this proved rash because not 5 minutes in I managed to half sprain my ankle. It started puffing up in an unfortunate fashion, but we couldn't really think what else to do except continue on (though ha, I got out of carrying the rucksack!). We arrived at the lake and I bunged my foot in the exceptionally cold water for a while (whilst eating an ice cream Layla had acquired). We then headed up to the hotel and acquired apple pie, cocktails and tea. The staff were bizarrely worried about my ankle and a first aiding security guard was dispatched ("code orange") to fix it. She was sweet (and came from London) though somewhat incompetent with her bandaging. But we fixed the bandage after she had gone, and when Layla made me walk home - another hour of walking - afterwards I was very grateful for its support. Back at our guesthouse, we collapsed exhausted on the sofa and swore off walking so far again. But of course, it wasn't long before we were out again, this time for dinner. This was a jolly affair (punctuated by me taking painkillers). Back at the end of the evening, we drank a little more ice wine and investigated VPN options in an attempt to watch an episode of the UK's Location Location Location, which our friends were on. We were unsuccessfully but went to bed determined to try again in the morning. 

And so it was that this morning after a not so delightful chat with my mother and packing we found ourselves watching our friends and envying the home they found to buy on the programme. From there, the very nice husband / co-owner of the guesthouse gave us a lift to the station so we could check our bags in ahead of our train journey (overnight!) to Vancouver. And we are now sat in a lovely coffeeshop, drinking tea and not walking. Hooray.