Lakes, Rivers and Waterfalls

Thinking it would be cold overnight and with no heating apparent in the room, we asked for a blanket (and later found another in the bottom drawer of a chest!) but some time during the night the heating was turned on and I awoke absolutely boiling hot so of course this meant nocturnal activities to open the window even further and discard the blanket!  Luckily we could have a lie in with morning coffee/tea as we didn't even have a deadline for breakfast!  Our improvised fridge (ice bucket) worked well - as did the sporks!

The weather was looking pretty grim when we left, rain and low cloud so we went prepared with waterproof trousers which we never actually needed.  It was quite cold though so gloves were appreciated.  After loading up the car with lunch, maps etc we set off up the road to Lake Louise itself.  We were lucky that the rain had stopped and some sunshine highlighted the peaks surrounding the beautiful lake.  We walked as far as we could around it and then returned to the car to resume our travels on route 1 via Kicking Horse Pass.  We stopped at the lower Spiral Tunnel viewpoint where we waited patiently and were rewarded with an extremely long goods train which we could see winding along into and out of the tunnel - an impressive sight.  We had actually traversed these on the Rocky Mountaineer a few days previously but because of the slow travel had not really appreciated the complicated construction.  Even though it was raining at the time, we managed to catch some good photos before heading up to the higher viewing point and managed to catch sight of another train doing the same manoeuvre, in the Upper Spiral Tunnel.

Further up the road  (involving a very tight hairpin bend at which the RV in front of us got stuck and had to reverse to obtain a better position to make it up the hill!) we saw the impressive Takakkaw Falls which are apparently even better in the summer with more melt water, but we were still able to walk right up to the base and take some good photos.  We stopped here for lunch before heading further on up the highway and turned off for the Natural Bridge which demonstrated the power of the thundering rivers pouring over rocks where once had been a waterfall, but over time this had been eroded to become a natural bridge.

Our final destination was off the main highway to Emerald Lake - where we grabbed a cheap coffee before walking some 5km around the lake.  The colour of the lake was just absolutely fabulous although more turquoise than emerald.  The rain had stopped and the sun was out, highlighting the gorgeous colours in the different habitats on the lakeside. The icing on the cake was a distant view of the Burgess Shale (very famous fossil bed, for non-biologist readers!).

Back at Lake Louise we had to stop at the market (grocery store) for some items which had been omitted from the original packing (such as contact lens fluid!),  plus further supplies of milk & lunch roll contents.  We dined at the hotel again in a more British pub style of restaurant with such meals as fish & chips, although the coleslaw was definitely an improvement on the stuff sold at home.