At last, the gondola trip and the weather looked promising. Rachel practised her deep breathing exercises to calm herself down – the thought of having to wrestle her to the ground in the cable car until the panic passed did not appeal to me at all. A little bit of gentle coaxing and she was in the car and the doors closed. It takes eight minutes to reach the top of Sulphur Mountain and, luckily, the two other people with us were chatty all the way to the top. I have to admit to gripping the seat once or twice myself but Rachel, deep in conversation, hardly noticed that we had arrived at the top.
There’s a lovely new centre at the top, with coffee bar, displays and, soon, a bistro. A boardwalk takes you to the summit where there is an old weather station that’s no longer used. It’s now basically a museum. The weather was good and the views spectacular – we could see the whole of Banff and the surrounding areas including Lake Minnewanka and beyond.
While up there we bumped into a couple from back home in the UK, who live near to us. We chatted for ages and had coffee together, exchanged contact details and will probably meet up to exchange holiday memories in a few weeks’ time. We bumped into them no fewer than 5 or 6 times between the gondola and Banff itself. How strange is that?
Here are a few photos from our gondola trip.
In the visitor centre at the summit there’s a delightful display of animal poo in size order and labelled with the name of the animal that produced it. There was, however, one animal missing; an animal who has often communed with nature in an emergency and who thought she might complete the set there and then and this would be the biggest of them all:
Back in Banff we sat in a lovely flower garden and had a picnic and then found a nice sports bar in town, watched tennis and relaxed with a drink. Heading back to the hotel early, we crashed out and slept for hours. It’s a hard life! Here’s a photo of part of Banff’s main street.
Tomorrow’s our last full day in Canada and we head to Calgary.
Be First to Comment