Up early and headed off to Banff (only a about 20 minute
drive) and parked up in the Tunnel Mt camping area. We unloaded the scooter and headed into Banff
and decided to take the gondola cable car to the top of Sulphur Mountain while
the weather was good. It was a fantastic
ride up and the views at the top were spectacular.
This is also the site of the cosmic ray
monitoring site. There are 99 in the
world and this is one of 9 in Canada. In
the 1930s-1940s a tiny hut was built and used as a weather observation
station. A gentleman used to make the
9hr climb several times a week in all sorts of weather to observe the weather
conditions. Lightening would strike the
antenna at the weather station regularly and once caused a fire down at the
base station (as it was connected to the weather station by a wire).
While at the viewing area there were a few little critters
(a type of chipmunk) scavenging/begging/stealing food from people. One managed to get into some guy’s
backpack! They weren’t too shy and it
was quite funny to watch. A couple that
we met while up the top, who came from Nambour, Queensland, Australia (small
world eh!)told us that there were a number of critters in a field next to the
Fairmont Hotel Resort and that they would take food out of your hands. We decided that we would have to go and check
this out for ourselves.
We came back down, had a Starbucks coffee, after booking an
Ice-coach tour (a tour on a special bus that drives onto the glaciers) and
headed into Banff to have a look around.
We noticed, while we are on the scooter, that people were
smiling at us. We’re not sure whether it
is because they think we’re stylishly retro-cool or because we’re lame. We’ll believe that we’re retro-cool…until
proven otherwise J.
We had sushi for lunch and then dawdled along the main
streets. We went back to the RV to get
the spare camera battery and some trail-mix for the critters, then headed to
the Fairmont Hotel Resort. The main
building of the Fairmont is impressive.
A huge stone exterior that was originally built in the 1883. It and was only occupied for about 4 months
of the year, up until 1969 when it was decided to open all year round. In the early days the well-heeled would part
with around $50,000 to stay there for around 4 months (not a bad life for
some). The inside was equally impressive
with high ceilings, wood panelling, large chandeliers etc. We had a really nice coffee at one of the
cafes within the complex after having had a look at some of the old photos.
Off to feed the little critters. We found them at one end of a football field
next to the hotel. They were the common
Ground Squirrel and quite bold. As soon
as we squatted down and rustled the bag with the trail mix in it they came
scampering over. They would sit up on
their back legs, gently hold your fingers to look into your hand for food
(these little guys have done this before J). They were so cute and it was so much fun, as
they would jump into your lap to get at the food. One even sat in Ros’s hand while eating the
food she had in the other hand. There
were even a couple of squirrel tussles over the food, but they were pretty well
behaved.
After satiating the Fairmont squirrel population we went
back into the main street area and ended up having dinner at the Maple
Leaf. Very nice! We both had wild
Canadian Salmon and Ros had a Maple Leaf Martini – apple liqueur, Canadian
Maple Whiskey and maple syrup.
No comments:
Post a Comment