Mountain Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

Ok, I may have lied about the tigers.

I left Calgary and got into Banff around 1am on the 14th after visiting Drumheller, which was awesome, I hired a little suzuki swift, and burned it down the highway to Drum. Was pertty funny actually, as theres so much construction I was taking that little thing off road!

Drumheller is amazing, and has really weird erosive patterns in the rock, leading to Horseshoe and Horsethief Canyons. I clocked up over 300k in that car...

That night, I left Calgary for Banff on the late bus, getting into Banff at 1am, where I promptly went to bed.

Banff is a really cool place, looking like an old Swiss ski resort, kind of. They make all new buildings conform to the older design, which keeps things looking peachy. That, and all the streets are named after animals. Imagine living on the corner of Mountain Goat and Elk.

Anyways, I found, much to my delight, that Lake Minnewanka was 'close by' so I decided to head off it that direction, being told by 2 Aussies in a hotel that it was about a 5k walk, so I set off. Getting to the highway, there is a sign telling people to beware of crossing wildlife; elk, bears, and wolves. Wolves. Why do there have to be wolves? I mean, I could possibly outrun a bear, but a pack of wolves? That just ain't fair! This made me very paranoid, unneccesarily so, and I continued on my way to Minnewanka, crossing the highway. When I got to the gates to the park, after walking around 4-5k, I see a sign telling me that Minnewanka was 5k away. Damn Aussies. It was around 6pm at that time, and I didnt want to be walking past the wolf infested forests in the dark, so I turned back, and went to the bar in the hostel. Banff HI is very good by the way, I fully reccomend it!

Checking out in a few minutes, then mooching around Banff for today, getting the Greyhound to Vancouver at around 8pm, braving the 14hr bus ride, and hopefully getting into Van. by Midday tomorrow.

Dan out.