Saturday, September 1, 2012

Picture postcard days

The last few days have been picture postcard days.  Many of the pictures I cut out of travel brochures for our Canada dream board featured Lake Louise & Moraine Lake.  A couple of those pictures featured people canoeing in perfect conditions on a mirror lake.  Well, we can now tick that box on our dream holiday.

We arrived in Lake Louise after a lovely few days in Banff.  We wandered down to the edge of the lake to where the very large Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise stands.  It sure is one large, impressive building!  We did venture inside to have a sneaky peak, and check out how much it would be for high tea, but we decided that CAD39pp was just a bit too much for our budget.  We did the next best thing and ate a picnic tea outside on the lake's foreshore (same view, just more rustic seating!).

The next day we headed off to Moraine Lake, and took up the chance to go for a canoe out on the lake.  It turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip so far.  Sitting out in the middle of the lake, when the light breeze dropped right away, the lake turned to the picture perfect millpond that is so often photographed - it really was just breathtaking.



Emerald Lake was next on the list - another beautiful, glacier blue lake.  There were lots of tourists here too, but it wasn't hard to find a quiet spot to grab a bite to eat with an awe-inspiring view.  Although, as you can see from the photo - some things don't change no matter where you are in the world.  (Rhys would like to report that Half Brother, by Kenneth Oppel, is a really good book.  It certainly appeared to be almost unputdownable.)

Takakkaw Falls is one of the highest waterfalls in Canada - and while impressive when we saw it, it must really be something during the spring melt.  The falls are 384m high, and water tumbling out from the ledge near the top is quite spectacular.



We finished the day with a soak in the hot tub on the roof of our hotel - a perfect end to a perfect day.