I have returned to the keyboard dear reader to provide a compilation of the last two days. We left Kelowna in near perfect weather, the best we have seen so far. The smoke was clearing, the sun was shining and it was heading for a top of 24º. We walked into town to a patisserie to buy some pastries and average coffee. Mission accomplished, it was back to the hotel to pack up and psyche myself up for the 6 hour drive to Lake Louise.
Although I haven't been able to view my ball-busting butch Jeep Wrangler in the same way since Danaka told me it's the Barbie car. Barbie did not drive the four-door. That's all I'm saying on the matter.
The drive allowed us both time to reflect on things we had discussed but had not made their way into previous posts.
Indicators
Or blinkers as we would say in Australia. They are not orange but red like the rest of the break light and are easily missed. There are some cars that have the orange plastic, but most have had them swapped out for all red light indicator systems. The Australian system is much safer. Then again, the use of indicators in Canada like the speed limit, appears to be optional.
Canadian Food
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| Surprise fries? No they are chips. |
Breakfast is a very strange affair. Granola with muesli is rare, toast non-existent and even regular pastries are few and far between. They have been replaced by breakfast sandwiches, savoury pastries and muffins - bacon and sun-dried tomato muffins - this is not breakfast food people.
Then there are fries and chips, a term used almost interchangeably at home. Not so here. Chips are crisps and, yes, they can be served with dinner as Jayne discovered one night. Fries are of course french fries. When you read the menu and it describes the dish as a "burger and chips" it is a simple mistake to make ... if you are from out of town.
The other stand out is their love of Caesar Salad. It is on almost every menu and can be customised to your liking. I don't mind a Caesar, but this is love.
The drive itself was long and difficult in parts. The weather was variable, as alpine weather can be, so we had sunshine, we had cloud, we had rain. The temperature got down as low as 10º at one point. Summer? Apparently. It's warmer in an Australian (Sydney) winter. The real problem was the amount of construction, read road works if you are in Australia. It went forever. And then some.
Most of the roads were dual lane with periodic overtaking lanes. In between there were double unbroken lines, even when you could see quite a distance ahead. The message was clear - don't overtake unless there is a designated lane. There was a consistent line of traffic both ways but it was generally moving close to the speed limit despite the presence of a number of heavy vehicles.
From our point of view there was little point in trying to overtake unless you could get past a number of vehicles using the designated lane method since there were always more vehicles up ahead. You had to go with the flow. Others however had a different perspective and thought they could make a serious gain by trying to overtake a single vehicle - we saw two suicidal attempts at this from two different vehicles (one an "N" plate driver which in Canada is the equivalent of a P Plate). One had to force his way back into the stream when he ran out of time with oncoming traffic approaching and the other actually held the line until the oncoming car veered to the side of the road to avoid a collision! We held our breath both times.
We kept scanning the sides of the forests for any presence of bear or moose but none were visible. Mind you our wine tour guide in Kelowna told us that in sixteen years of driving around the area, he had only seen one moose. We did however see a deer gingerly crossing the road fairly early on in the trip and a long horn sheep on the road side just out of Golden.
When we finally arrived at the Lake Louise Fairmont Resort, the front desk girl who checked us in inquired about our trip and when we said it had taken longer because of the road construction work, she actually said we were lucky since the road we were travelling is closed regularly due to fatal head on collisions, although she blamed it on truck drivers. Our experience was that the truck drivers were not at fault at all.
Long trains
We have had the opportunity to observe several trains snaking their way along the rail lines that are also cut into the mountain side. They are incredibly long and yes, I know, we have the very long coal/iron ore trains out in the sticks, but these could be equally long; I've never seen both ends of the one train. On the drive up, we turned off onto a lesser highway and there was a train line next to us. On it was an aforementioned very long train. I'm not sure how far back it stretched. Imagine getting to a level crossing thought I and then noticed the car behind me was travelling unCanadianly close to me. So I increased my speed, we passed the train and about a kilometre down the road we crossed the rail line. Very glad I didn't have to wait and get to see how long the Canadian trains actually are.
Cliches
Aside from that we saw many Canadian cliches. Logs corralled and floating on the river at a saw mill. Logs laid out to dry. Stacks and stacks of logs, piled high. Logging trucks. Mountains that reached into the cloud cover. The snow capped rocky mountains (and thank you to John Denver for his 1972 song. It's really more about self-discovery and references Colorado, but, you know, it worked).
Lake Louise
We arrived at Lake Louise to cloud and light rain. The view from our room is pretty tidy and as I noted on Facebook as I checked in last night, it is a once in a lifetime experience. For a whole host of reasons. Not the least of which is the price of the hotel and everything in it - you are a captive and it is priced accordingly.
The level of advice from the Concierge and other staff appears to be based on an answer the question only scenario, do not offer any further information. Curiously, I thought that was what the Concierge did, not here. For example: we wanted to get into the Lake Louise village and asked about the walk. We were told it was about 4kms, not a pleasant walk and all uphill on the way home. At no point did they mention that there is a complimentary shuttle from the hotel to the Village. We discovered that ourselves.
Then this morning. There are two restaurants where you can eat breakfast. They offer exactly the same menu, probably cooked by the same chef in the same kitchen. The smallest breakfast? $26 Canadian for a Continental breakfast. All I wanted was a coffee and pastry or granola, but no we were told, that is it. Until later in the day we discovered the 24 hour Deli cafe in the hotel that serves coffee and pastries and doesn't force feed you. Not exactly customer friendly. |
| The view back to the hotel |
From my cynical corner of the world this is about maximising profit. That and the 'we are here attitude, there is no-one else so you have to stay with us'. There are six restaurants in the hotel and the prices at their flagship establishments? Around $50 Canadian for a main, in fact, a pork chop was $51. It must have been massive for that money. Despite the fancy French words they use to describe the dishes ... well, it's overpriced for what you receive and let's not discuss fine dining.
And then ... well it is an old hotel and sound travels, from the outside in through the windows. That is OK. Also from the corridor into your room and we are near the elevator and I have mentioned before that some nationalities (not naming them, but Aussie crocodiles love them) just don't have, or refuse to use an inside voice. That or they just don't care. It wasn't overly noisy last night but the intrepid explorers who stay here began early, well before 6am (come on, I'm on holiday) and thought nothing of calling down the hallway to Linde or Linda. It doesn't take much to be aware of other people and be considerate.
After no breakfast this morning, we walked around the shoreline of Lake Louise and watched the numbers swell as the day-trippers arrived. It is spectacular scenery, it's just a shame that the weather hasn't been kinder to us. A blue sky would make this place stunning. Despite the weather there were plenty of walkers around the lake's edge and rock climbers on different rock faces, some easy, some very challenging. The lake itself also became home to red canoes being paddled the length and breadth the water.
We also saw some Canadian wildlife on the walk - some very tame chipmunks who have obviously enjoyed the generosity of human food and so were not adverse to posing for camera toting tourists in the hope of receiving some dietary rewards (despite all the signage telling people how harmful it is to feed the wildlife). We also saw a ground squirrel.
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| One of our neighbours |
In the afternoon we caught the shuttle down to the village mall. It gives you a 2 hour turn around ... about 90 minutes too long. Again, this is not difficult to work out, why a five star hotel would toy with its guests this way is beyond me. The mall is small, think local suburban shopping centre, and there is not a lot to see. The Information Centre was useful because it provided shelter while waiting for the return shuttle.
The trip did however provide us with something to eat and the opportunity to see the massive number of cars that were trying to access the Lake Louise public car park - which, as we passed by, had reached capacity - it may be a very long drive to then see nothing because you cannot park your vehicle. Herein lies the monopoly enjoyed by the Chateau Fairmont Resort. It has exclusive rights to the lake front and if you want to be guaranteed access to the lake, you pay accordingly or else you endure a tour company coach experience - not our idea of a good time.
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| A ground squirrel ... I think |
Until tomorrow ...
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