On the road to BC with two Australians

I am struggeling to keep up with my blog posts. 

The last few weeks have been pretty busy. I was skiing every free day and every free morning I had, enjoying the very last days where the hill was still open. Then, on the 18th of May, skiing season was officially done with the Slush Cup. Last day in Sunshine Village. I came to Canada for skiing, enjoyed more than 60 days of skiing this season and now this part of my Canada year is over... and I am probably not gonna ski anywhere in North America for the next few years due to the immense costs. No more champagne Rocky Mountain powder for a while... I miss it already and it's been just a week. :(((((

But let's talk about something else, I am in kind of a sappy and cranky mood today anyway and this doesn't really do any good.

Because actually we had amazing spring weather the last few weeks and I went on a few roadtrips and biking adventures!!! Today's story includes 2 Australians (Teegan and Thea), 1 German (me), a rental car and about 550 km on the road! This already makes a story ;) We went to Kananaskis country to see the Spray Lakes, then turned around and went about 200km into BC to bathe in natural hot springs. Not like the ones in Banff where you're actually in a swimming pool that's filled with the spring water but proper natural ones in natural pools. 

We started of getting the rental car and having a coffee from our favorite coffee place in town. We found the way to Kananaskis immediately and our first stop was the Goat pond. It already was a nice day, but the mornings were still super cold. Guess what my Aussies were wearing... thongs!!! Like in flip flops. One of my first Aussie lessons when I got here ;) We are not talking about underwear here, but about shoes. And they even stepped into the water... Crazy Australians!!!

Goat pond

Thea in shorts and thongs... I am still impressed

The ice on the litle pond had already thawed (Lake Louise is still frozen) and the water was very clear. What a nice start for the day.

 About 10km down kind of a dirt road we reached the Spray Lakes. And again. The water was translucent and the reflections of the mountains surrounding it were visible very clear on the calm water. I will never get sick admiring the color of the lakes and rivers here. There were just 2 other cars, one belonged to a guy who was fishing, the other one to a girl with a dog. I don't need to mention how excited we were about the dog (meaning we went totally crazy and patted it)...We talked a bit to both of them, proper Albertans (those are rare in Banff!!!) and they shared a few of their stories and took the pictures where there's the 3 of us in it.

Spray Lakes

There was a lot of driftwood on the edge of the lake. Looked kinda cool.

Just the perfect reflection

Enjoying the view

The three of us

So this is what happens when I tried to get a tourist picture ;)

Then it was time to make our way back from K-country (as we call it now :D) and hit the road down to BC. It was a very long, but absolutely beautiful drive. It's worth going just for the drive! It reminded me a little bit of the Icefields Parkway. Temperatures have risen, so going outside in just a t-shirt was really cool after this long winter wearing thick and heavy jackets.

Highway 93

Exploring the woods... find the snow ball!!!

Can it get any more turqoise?

Almost into Radium, there were these little fellas hanging out next to the road.

Finally, we made it all the way to the natural hot springs! The last bit is like 20km on a dirt road. Let's just say this is something I am not at all used to (driving in snow and ice - absolutely no problem but this...). I was quite happy that Thea was driving and I didn't have to deal with this. Shit my pants a few times anyway, especially when one of those wood trucks passed us going incredibly fast. Finally arriving, we spent like an hour enjoying the hot springs water and the heat outside. This was exactly how I imagine hot springs to be, way better then just sitting in a pool!!!

Lussier river next to the springs

Me and Teegan enjoying the water

So people please behave!!!

Swan Lake

Not only the lake, but also the sky was the bluest of blue

On our way home, it was close to dawn, so we passed a few animals just grazing next to the highway. No bear or moose (yes, we were desperate to see those, especially as the bears were just waking up...), but a lot of pretty deer who were not disturbed at all by all the cars passing them. Furthermore, we did a few stops we did not do whilst going there. We were just afraid to run out of time, but on our way back we just took the time and enjoyed the view.

Columbia Lake, the source of the Columbia river going all the way thorugh the US (LOOK AT THOSE MOUNTAINS WITH THE SNOW TIPS!!!)

LOOK AT THAT SKY!

These hoodoos definitely beat the Banff hoodoos in being spectacular.

Cute little deer

Mama deer and fawn

 Back in Banff, we decided to further go bear and moose hunting and, as we still had the car, we figured we might as well drive to Lake Minnewanka and explore. Excited as we are, we saw a huuuuge thing standing beside the road. Thea was literally doing a screeching stop and we took a few pictures of that poor young elk/caribou/whatever... The super super excitment lasted until we realized after like 1 min that it wasn't an actual moose but it was still quite cool. I liked it a lot.

I think this guy was approximately 1.50m tall!

Lake Minnewanka

So, that's it for today. Turned out to be quite a big thing. Sorry for that, but I got a bit carried away remembering all these little moments ;) And guess what, my mood actually improved a hell of a lot thinking of this roadtrip and looking at all those pictures!!!

Thanks to Thea and Teegan for this day! I had an absolutely lovely day and I really miss you Thea!!!