Rocky Mountaineer tour: Lake Louise and Banff

Here we are at the Chateau Lake Louise in one of the many hall ways... let me tell you, one could get very lost in this place.

Jason and I decided to pick up a quick easy breakfast from the chateau deli (chocolate croissants, bircher meusli, coffee and diet coke)....and then we did another little walk before our tour was due to start. You decide who had what.

Here are some shots of the Chateau (looking into the sun sorry).

And Jason and I with another timer shot.

This is one of my most favorite shots ever. The reflections are just purely amazing.

Some arty shots with the lake in the background. What great colours!

And a black and white arty shot.

This is the view from one of the cafes.

We left Lake Lousie and I really felt like we didn't get enough time there at all. i would have loved another whole day to explore the many other walks and go kayaking on the lake etc. So it was a bit sad to leave the Lake as it was just a purely awesome time for us.

We got back on the bus and were taken back to banff for a tour of a few spots. One of the first was a trip up to the top of the Banff Goldola. We were up really high. Here is one of our first views from the top.

There was a great walkway to head alone, you can see the bad weather coming in from the right.

Another view from the top.

This is one of my favourite shots of me and Jason from the holiday.

More of the impending bad weather.

You will see a lot of this little fellow (and his mates). He thought the camera strap was food and was trying to grab it.

The birds in the tree (if you can call it a tree)

Here he is again....

Here is the Banff Farimont Hotel as seen from the top of the banff Gondola.

My favourite photo of jason!

Here I am.

There were so many photo opportunites from the top, we packed a lot into our 20 minutes up there.

More wildlife.... here's mummy goat.

And little baby goat....

We finished at the top of the Banff gondola and then headed to the Bow Falls. These falls are illegal to go over in any mode, but Marilyn Monroe went over them for one of her movies in the 50's.

After we finished at Bow falls and had lunch in town, we had one last stop, this was at the Hoodoos. A hoodoo is a rock formation which is caused by differential resistance to erosion. This means that some parts of the hoodoo are harder than others and these hard parts last longer. In the hoodoos above, the tops are the hardest part and they protect the soft rock below from wearing away.

Here's our little mate again (or actually one of his family)...they move really fast and we had lots of misses with the photos.

After we left the Hoodoos we were on the last leg of our tour. Just a 90 min bus trip to Calgary to go... Sad.

Calgary was not that great after all the awesome places that we had been to and we actually didn't take any photos at all. We ended up using the time in Calgary as down time and relaxing. We got in room dining, an in room movie and slept late.

On the Saturday afternoon we flew back to Vancouver, we only had one more night for our holiday.