Athabasca Falls and Five Lakes, Canada

Falls, runs and hot pools.

We survived the night. Probably due to our dutiful obeying of the rules: storing all food, food related products and food associated clothing in the sealed car. What great campers we've become!

It was a leisurely day. The fact that our holiday is almost over came crashing down like the hopes of NZ when Wayne Barnes missed a forward pass in the quarter finals of the 2007 RWC (oh are we over that yet?). We are savouring our time accordingly. Clearing the schedule and appreciating time to do nothing (not even blog...hence the delay).

We did manage a trip to the great Athabasca falls, the furthest upstream salmon migration point - I'm sure you'll see why in the photo. We also hazarded a jog in some torturous heat in the Valley of the Five Lakes. They had water clarity to die for and water temperature to kill you. The irony of the hot/cold dilemma took another moment to laugh at us.

Lunch was chicken wraps in a downtown Jasper park, freshly prepared in our portable kitchen, which isn't much more than a chilly bin and a burner. But you wouldn't guess it based on meal quality.

We spent most of the afternoon searching for a campsite which has become a bit of a regular pastime. It's peak season and everything is booked up, so we've been placing our bets on late cancellations - a very hit and miss affair. This afternoon held a lot of misses and we ended up in the best part of a very underwhelming overflow campsite in Snaring.

Accordingly we spent as little time as possible there, and passed the evening at the Miette Hot Pools. It was a lovely setting for hot pools but it was hard to appreciate it when it was so packed. We undertook chronic people watching, mostly fascinating by the variety of shapes, sizes, outfits and behaviours of the multicultural and varied-age group of tourists. We even spotted the coveted Burkhini in action!Read more