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| Day 8 Athabascar Falls and a walk round Cinq Lacs | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 7:45am | Hurray again! What to do today? First things first - milk for breakfast, pop for later. Slight chill and overcast (weather not me). Decided to do the Athabasca Falls and then the 5 lakes walk. |
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| Shopping first! | But first into Jasper for the Bear Bells and some cool shades for me. The shades are needed because since the Athabasca Glacier, where I sat on my original sunglasses, I have been walking round with them held on by just one arm. The bear bells are to ensure we do not startle any bears on our walk - thus causing them to charge at us. |
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| Athabascar Falls | So we meandered through to the falls late morning - only 30Km away. You can go right up close at viewing stations (this includes 2 - yes 2 - concrete bridges at different levels over the falls. Also, can actually walk down what was the channel to the 'original' falls before it changed course about 10 metres over to the right. Took several photos - some arty using different camera speeds to see what would happen. |
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| Lunch and a catastrophe averted | After that back to Jasper to pick up some lunch and drinks. Took them out to the start point of the walk. I went to the little loo at the side of the car park. Has a little wooden outside latch as well as a hook and eye 'lock' on the inside. Guess what, when I had finished, the little wooden latch had turned round and locked me in. Knowing that no-one could hear me over the traffic, I ingeniously slid the car key thru the gap in the door and thus saved myself from slow starvation. |
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| The Cinq Lacs walk | After that the walk was a slow, hot affair. The air was humid, there was very little wind in the trees and the bloody bear bells drowned out any animal or bird sounds. Katie initially had her bell attached to her foot. She soon took that off! But she held it in her hand all the way round, shaking it fairly vigorously. Worked tho' - no bears - or birds, mammals, humans or anything. |
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| 15:45 | Back to base for drink and a sit down. Mary went to her seat overlooking the river. I went for about 10 minutes then crashed out indoors for about 2 hours! Poor old codger - living and walking at altitude obviously takes its toll. |
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| more shopping | Another trip into Jasper, this time to get money and petrol and Mary drove - to get used to the controls as she is driving some or all of the way to Clearwater tomorrow. Seat doesn't seem to move forward enough but never mind.
We didn't actually achieve any of that as we ran out of time. The only bank I could find didn't take my card. Well it did and it also asked for my PIN, what language, what account to take money from and what amount. But after pressing OK button (much more friendly than ENTER) it told me it doesn't do my card. Not only that but the Information Centre was shut so we are travelling to Clearwater 'blind' as to what to see on the way. Ho Hum, life's like that! |
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| 20:00 | Back to lodgings for a humungous meal at the restaurant - we all had sweet as well and we are all very full tonight. Walked slowly back to cabin, lay down and patted our bellies and groaned a lot. Lucy especially seemed to be suffering. Mind you, the ice cream sundaes she and Katie had, did have lumps of chocolate fudge in - all the way down.
A thoroughly civilised, if over-indulgent, end to our stay in Jasper.
Tomorrow up at whenever and on our way soon after. Of course we have to go into Jasper first to get petrol.
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