Lake Louise & Blanket Creek

After the "metropolis" of Banff, we headed to another pretty well known settlement, Lake Louise. On the way we stopped off several times to admire / gawp at views like this:

and this:

The camping site at Lake Louise was carefully noted as for "hard sided units only". Roughly translates as bear proof. There was an area for tents / soft sided that was surrounded by an electric fence. Mmmm.

Yet another peaceful location with well separated pitches. We were getting so used to the quality of the locations and the relative isolation they offered too. After setting up the trailer, we headed into the small town for a look see and some fuel for the truck. Although fuel prices were higher than in the Calgary area, they were still rather lower than in the UK. Rather is an understatement of course.

The best coffee shop in town was tiny and  disappointing, Carrot cake slices pre cut and wrapped in cling film, served just like that and you had to ask for a fork to eat it with. OK coffee, but no more than OK. Service was probably the least engaged we experienced in Canada. Clearly they didn't have to try hard with plenty of tourists around:

Disappointing but the local liquor store made up for it by stocking some nice wine that we needed to take back to accompany dinner al fresco.

We'd seen many CanaDream and Cruise Canada rental motorhomes (RVs) on our travels. Just how strange some of the rental folks were really struck us in Lake Louise. A rental RV arrived as we were going to bed, it was pitch dark outside. They "set-up" and then left before we got up in the morning. It seemed to be typical behaviour too. Kind of  an "I've only got a week and need to see everything in that time" approach. Not quite our idea of enjoying the beautiful country. There again, we were so fortunate to be borrowing, not renting our accommodation and transport.

For our full day there, we walked into town and visited the museum where we came face to face with a bear. One that had been stuffed but still looked impressive:

with quite a history too. Sorry for the poor quality of the image but the story of this "homing bear" is well worth reading:

The campsite continued the bear theme. Everywhere we stayed had reminders that no food or food preparation articles like BBQs, cooking tongs,  plates etc should be left outside so as to avoid attracting bears. Lake Louise camping had this reminder:

and underneath was a timely reminder of the strength of a bear and how sharp their claws are::

We decided that it was probably best not to mess with them and carried the bear spray around just in case, whilst walking along the river that borders the camping area:

Dinner was once more on the monster BBQ:

and no, we didn't eat it all between us. We didn't share it with any wildlife either - the Airstream has a nice big fridge that looked after the uneaten cooked food for us. The setting was perfect:

Dinner and wine too. 

We were thinking that we were in the very nicest trailer in the park after a walk around when this happened. A monster Airstream arrived (way longer than the biggest available in Europe) and set up shop. We espied that huge awning and were looking forward to see how the owners deployed it and fitted the struts in place. No amusement at all ensued - it was an all electric affair: 

Quite a piece of kit.

Our plan was to head to Blanket Creek the next day,  which was quite a long drive compared to some of our other trips - around 260 Km. We asked Google maps how long that would take and were a bit horrified to see that they said over 8.5 hours as Highway #1 was closed. 

Er? Luckily, it wasn't, there were roadworks and SALT (single alternate lane traffic) but it was far from shut. A bit bumpy and muddy but not shut. So, we managed the drive in way less time but were sad when after we'd backed the trailer into our spot, it started raining. Actually it started just as we were preparing to back in. The crew was outside directing operations and so she was very focussed on getting us into position nice and quickly. We were NOT used to rain at all as you can see from the earlier pictures. The rain was a pity as we didn't explore the area very much thanks to the downpour. It was a beautiful secluded spot too. Another time....