Lovely hostel in Banff, comfortable room (4-bed dorm) but we had to pay 6 dollars for breakfast…. not much time here as we had to leave at 8am for Jasper. Beautiful morning with stunning mountain ranges all around. Michael, Cherry, Sophie and Silvie left us for the Lumberjack leg of the Moose tour. This involved more strenuous hiking. But we were joined by Angus from NZ and Hannah and Jeff, who had just got engaged in Sydney.
Lake Louise next with a very grand chateau with a number of vintage cars arriving at the main entrance. The Lake of course was stunning but there were rather too many tourists here. I photographed a Clark’s Nutcracker bird here which was very tame.
Next we stopped at Lake Bow to stretch our legs. It was very cold here with water from the glacier and surrounded by Christmas trees. We had another group photo taken here.
Our lunch stop was by the Saskatchewen River which was made up of glacier fed emerald rivulets with unusual wild spring flowers in abundance on the banks.
Later we stopped at Athabasca falls for a half hour break – beautiful rock formations here and powerful turquoise water.
Next we stopped at Maligne Canyon for a walk. I saw my first Elk in the wild, a magnificent animal and it didn’t run off when the bus stopped to take a closer 
look.
We finally arrived in Jasper and went into town for supplies for the next day’s breakfast and lunch then back to HI Hostel. This hostel reminded me very much of River Valley in New Zealand but this time in the middle of the woods! Beware of the bears! We made a group meal of veggie curry which was fu
n followed by barbecued marshmallows. 
This was hilarious with beers and wine as the sun went down. There was an enormous German Shepherd dog on the premises. I made a howling noise like I used to with Blue and he copied. 
I really didn’t expect this, it was so funny, especially as he did it to order after that. Everyone was amazed. We were all bunked up together in a 16-bed chalet which was very cosy and I slept really well. The place could be described a basic log cabin with burner in the centre. – no wi-fi and the two loos were just a shed in the woods (hole in the ground affair with roof!) But it was rustic and fun.
