I was sorry I couldn’t spend longer in Banff, such a pretty town in the Rockies with good shops and restaurants and plenty to do and see. 
It was another bright sunny morning as we left – we have been so lucky with the weather. First stop Safeway to buy our picnic lunch. We soon stopped at Golden for a coffee and to refuel our trusty Moosebus.
Our exercise for the morning would be Cedar Walk, a beautiful purpose built wooden boardwalk through a forest of huge cedar trees dating back 500 years. It was damp and cool after recent rain.
Just looking at trees generally in this part of Canada- there seem to be 3 main varieties although I don’t know their names – most common tall narrow conifers with areas where many have died due to a beetle which is spreading a disease. These are interspersed with another tall narrow conifer but brighter green with straight horizontal branches. The third looks like a cross between a silver birch and a gum tree. Will have to find out the names of these trees.
Revelstoke National Park was the Place for our picnic. I remembered us having Macdonalds here late on the way up with no time to stop after our bus broke down. Now on a lovely hot day I could see how beautiful it is by the lake. Time to put our clocks back again by 1 hour.
We stopped for home made ice cream at a dairy farm where there were new born calves from the Holstein herd.
Here is Carole with a calf sucking her finger.
There were unusual red flowers growing in therapies with dog daisies and buttercups – have seen these a lot on the side of the road and thought they were poppies.
Highlight of the day we saw a huge Grizzly grazing or maybe digging for worms in a field alongside a black bear – most unusual sight!
The black bear kept disappearing in the long grass.
Soon after all the excitement of the bears, we stopped to look around Davies eccentric Farm and Goat walk. The goats had learnt to rotate a wheel at the top of the walk to haul up a small bucket containing food, if the tourists put some in.
When we arrived back at Kelowna Hostel, each of us was nonplussed to be asked medium or rare for steak? It was a great surprise to find that steak was on the menu for dinner and delicious steak it was too. Mary had also planned “Champagne” all round as it was to be our last night with her. What a great driver, thanks Mary! In the evening Natalie, Carole and I headed towards to cinemas to watch a Robert Redford movie (as the night was young). However, it was far too good an evening to be indoors so instead we headed to the lake and played some beach volley ball then challenged each other to a swim in the lake. It was soooo cold, far colder than the 3 degree temperature of the water in the rapids but then I had a wet suit on. So much more fun than the cinema and cost us nothing.
I just loved some of the artwork all over the walls in this hostel… just a couple here….. these filled a whole wall, floor to ceiling!
