Carrick to Calgary

Well, as Mr White promised that I would update everyone on our exploits last weekend, I thought I'd better get on with it. J's at work at the moment and I'm sitting waiting for my dinner sausages to cook, so I have a few moments to compile the gallery of photos that I hope will give you some idea of how beautiful the countryside was last Saturday. We had decided that we would each buy a pair of walking boots and make the effort to get out and about on at least some of the hundreds of walking trails that we have on our doorstep. So, on the advice of one of my work colleagues (Ruth), we visited the Mountain Equipment Co-op in the city centre - well, what a fantastic place! They had everything that you could possibly want for doing just about any sort of activity outside - they had stuff for camping, canoeing, cycling, walking etc etc, as well as some pretty nifty cotton jumpers, fleece tops, coats... in fact, you name it, they probably had it somewhere in there. So we talked to a guy, told him that we didn't know what we needed, and he proceeded to sort us out with a pair of boots and socks each. Mr White got a waterproof coat, and I got a couple of long sleeved teeshirts and a fleece sleeveless top (not terribly stylish, but nice and warm!).

So, we got up on Saturday morning to face yet more rain. As you know, the weather hasn't been too good lately and everyone here is moaning about the fact that they didn't have a summer. I keep telling them that they should try a Northern Ireland summer, and then they might have something to moan about, but I think that they're used to blue skies about 80% of the time here and they get very depressed when they don't see the sun for a few days. Anyway, we figured that we were well enough equipped, so we got sorted with first aid stuff, picnic, maps, coats, boots etc and by the time we had done that, the weather had changed again and it turned out to be a beautiful day.

So here are a few pictures of the road out west towards Kananaskis Country.... the road we travelled on is known as the Trans Canada (or Highway 1), and it runs right across Canada from the east coast to the west coast. Needless to say, we were only on a very tiny portion of it...




Its a good road, but I think that Mr White thought we needed more of a challenge, so instead of staying on the highway, we turned off on to the laughingly named Highway 68. This was pretty good for about 200 metres, and then it slowly but surely turned into a rather rough gravel road. Mind you, I read a statistic in the last week or so that said that more than half of Alberta's roads are unpaved, and the girls in our office who come from Saskatchewan tell me that only about 20% of the roads there are paved. I'm not sure that I believe the story about Saskatchewan - I think that it IS very rural, but people here in the big city of Calgary do delight in telling stories about it. For example, its so flat that they say if your dog runs away from home, you can watch it go for days.... they also say that half of the population of Saskatchewan actually lives in Calgary. I kind of believe that one - on the limited sample that is made up of the people I know (i.e. the people in my office), half of them actuallly do come from Saskatchewan.

Anyway, here is a picture of highway 68 - I don't think you'll get the full impact of what a bad road it is...



The saving grace was that there wasn't actually anybody else on it!

So anyway, we trundled on (slowly) and stopped off anywhere that took our fancy. One of the first places was a 'demonstration forest' - very educational area with lots of different trees. Here we are (in a bad photo taken into the sun)...



The top I am wearing is one of my Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC for short) purchases.

We then went a little further, and decided to get the boots on and walk up a big hill. Well it wasn't actually a terribly big hill... relative to what was in the near vicinity...

Here are the boots...



Mr White's are the brown ones, and mine are the blue.

And here is Mr White, flaked out at the top of the hill...



It all turned out to be a bit of a nature walk as the woods were full of mushrooms...





flowers...



and me...




We also had to be reasonably careful, as apparently we were walking in bear country. Actually, I think we probably made that much noise that any self respecting bear was likely to have moved well out of our way. However, there were signs all over the car-park...



and in the toilets...




Speaking of toilets - its absolutely wonderful that the authorities provide somewhere to have a pee, but they do tend to be rather basic. I think I posted a picture of a rather unsavoury toilet on the blog some time ago, but at least that one had a sort of normal toilet bowl. This one, in this little hut...



turned out to be a pit latrine - where you start to pee, and wait ages for it to hit the bottom!



Please note that I have spared you the view with the lid up...!

Anyway, I started out by saying that I wanted to show you how lovely the countryside was, and I suppose that all this talk about toilets isn't really what you wanted to hear (or see). So, as my sausages are now ready, I'll leave you with some images of Kananaskis Country...

Our little car under some very tall trees...




Kovach Pond (apparently used to be a gravel pit close to a coal mine)...




Dragonflies...




J at Kovach Pond...




Distant peak...





I know I said that I would leave you with those images, but I wanted to show off a little bit of my mum and dad's fruit and veg harvest.

Here are some carrots...



A bucket of beans (and there's more where those came from!!)



And the first apples from the column fruit trees that were planted nearly 3 years ago...




More later ...

P