Our morning routine started in pretty much the same fashion as the rest, breakfast, cuppa and a quick shower.
We then made our way back towards Banff to attend our Lake Minnewanka Tour. We decided to be adventurous and opted for a different route the 1A Highway - Bow Valley Trail, which followed the Trans-Canada Railway and Bow River. The drive was fairly uneventful until we drove up towards a bit of a commotion on the road ahead. Cars in both directions had stopped in the road, and several people were hanging out of their windows with cameras. After getting close enough, and carefully scanning the forest, we finally saw what the fuss was about - a bear! It looked to be a grizzly, which was eating berries from a bush. We managed to snap a few blurry bigfoot-style photos before some silly woman yelled 'OH MA GOD, A BEAR!' which sent the poor thing running back into the forest. After a few minutes trying to catch sight of it again, we continued on our way.
We had a few stops along the way to 'Moose Meadows' and other similarly named locations to try our luck at spotting more wildlife, but alas no such luck. After a short drive along a steep mountain pass we arrived at our destination. Shortly after arriving, and straight outside the hut which held the toilets, were a large group of 'Big Horn Mountain Sheep' who surprised Jamie as he came out.
We had a quick walk along the shore which were teaming with people having BBQs and swimming in the lake we joined the queue for the boat tour. The tour was led by the captain and a narrator telling you the history of the lake and it's surroundings.
After our tour, we had a not-as-nice-as-it-sounded 'all beef' hotdog, and decided to try our luck at yet more wildlife spotting on the same route back. Luckily this paid off again. On the same road, near to Johnston Canyon that we'd visited previously earlier in the week, was another commotion in the road. This time is was easy to see what everyone was looking at - a huge Elk eating the grass at the side of the road. Becky snapped a few photos as we slowly edged our way by, but the beast seemed unphased by the attention of us and the many others. Eventually however, it did tire of the attention and made its way into the woods.
The woods were just next to the Johnston Canyon car park, so we decided to park up and try to get some more photos. A few other people followed suit!
After taking a myriad of photos, we continued on our journey back, craning our necks trying to look for yet more animals on the roadside, but it seems our luck had run out for the day.
Our final trip of the day was to Lake Moraine, which is high in the mountains and quite isolated in comparison to the other lakes we'd visited. Tonight was the first night of the Perseid meteor shower, and since it was a clear night we hoped we'd get a good view of the night sky. Aside from a dimly lit nearby lodge, the area was empty and as the darkness crept in, we were given a great view. We spotted a fair number of shooting stars during our hour there. In the far distance was also a huge thunderstorm. We were too far away to hear any thunder, but the lightning flashes were constant, like nothing we'd seen before.
Now in complete darkness, we made our way back down the steep mountain road to Lake Louise for our last night in their campgrounds. Tomorrow is our longest drive yet - North into Jasper National Park.
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