my travels in pixels

Unless you are in the top of Australia (think estuarine crocodiles as the freshies are harmless!), we normally never have to worry about walking into something that might potentially eat us. Here in North America they have cougar (probably my biggest fear) and bears. We also watch out here for snakes (rattlers in the desert), bison, elk and moose as they can kill you too. This week we really had to watch all around us in case a bear just appeared behind us. Be careful when you come out of the restroom! As you can see we finally got to see the sow and cubs. We had been looking for them ever since we arrived, but no show until this day. These cubs are a lot bigger than the ones we saw last year, it just goes to show that if it is a mild winter they can start eating sooner, and get bigger quicker. Mum sent the cubs up the tree for safety Cathy spotted some movement in the forest up near the Cameron Lake carpark. There was a mating pair in there, a cinnamon sow a...

Waterton Lakes National Park - Week 1 We have returned for our second year to Waterton Lakes NP in Canada, two weeks earlier than last year. It is normally quite cool at this time of year but the weather like everywhere it seems, is different this year. The first few days were in the high 20ºC's, days are sunny, sometimes with a cold wind. The wildflowers are out spread across the green meadows and the smell is divine. Cinnamon black bear - boar This bear had just walked through the carpark. He started to walk towards the trail that leads to Akamina Lake. Wildlife will take the easy route whenever possible, so if there is a trail there they will take it. Sure enough he started walking down the trail, so we followed him. Keeping a healthy distance behind and with a can of bear spray of course! Then he stopped and rubbed himself up against a tree. He never did continue down to the lake, but went into the forest. This black bear is very blonde. Most of the tourists here ...

Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming Yellowstone is so large that you need to spend time in different areas. During our first year we came in the south gate from the Grand Tetons and stayed at Grant Village, then moved up to Tower Fall so that we could visit the Lamar and Tower area, then Norris to see the western side of the park. view from our campsite This year after Fishing Bridge, we moved up to Mammoth where we have stayed numerous times before. Our favourite campsite wasn't available, so we stayed in another for one night and moved the next day. The campground is full every night, and when we went to renew our site, they had taken the envelopes away to stop people stealing other people's campsites!

Calgary, Cochrane & Kananaskas Provincial Park, Alberta We were planning to go to Calgary to meet up with Frank who was at Lake Clark AK, last year and now that Cathy and Jim whom we met in Yellowstone this year had introduced us to Kyle and his family in Waterton, we had another reason. Kyle suggested we go to Kananaskas, which is ‘next door’ to the Canadian Rockies (Banff etc) and where the locals go. After looking at the map, I was thoroughly confused as it had many different areas, so we decided to go to Calgary first. Kyle had asked his father if we could stay in his driveway as he lives on acreage outside town, to which he agreed. I think it helped that we were Australian as he loves Australia, having been there twice and calls Australia ‘Canada with palm trees’. Calgary is similar to an Australian small city. The weather is perfect, around the mid 20’s C each day and the food in the supermarkets is similar to ours as well. His father has a number of Kyle’s photographs on...

Waterton Lakes Part 2 Waterton has a lot of walking trails of which we did: part of Cameron Lakeshore because it became impassable due to flooding, Akamina Lake, Crandell Lake off the Akamina Parkway, Forum Falls and campsite which is on The Wall trail, and Blakiston Falls. The day before we left we were going to Bertha falls but a thunderstorm squashed that idea. They give you a great map showing all the walking trails, with a description, elevation, estimated time and length. So we would start our day early looking for the sow and cubs and then go off and do a walk, go back to our campsite during the day, have dinner at lunchtime and come back before dusk to look for the bears again.  Canada Day fell in the middle of our stay which brought warm sunny days and lots of people, I think it’s the start of their holiday season.   Lindsay went back to the hotel to find out why he didn’t get a reply from his complaint and we were asked to come back ‘on the hou...

Waterton Lakes NP, Alberta Canada All that fuss over nothing about taking food over the border. You don’t need to declare any food going into Alberta, only British Columbia and some other place. They didn’t even ask us about our alcohol. Did we have firearms, bear spray or any other personal security device. Did we own our truck and trailer and where were they registered and why?, Did we have flights booked to leave the US? Now that we don’t have the i94 visa stapled into our passport, I’m not sure what the procedure will be if we want to officially leave the USA at the end of a six month period driving across a international border. When we arrived at our campground just outside of Waterton, there was a sign on the office window to say the campground was closed due to flooding, but the Fraser’s are to go to site 47 and just follow the map! Good thing we booked last week. They had 11”/28cm of rain in two days! Older Canadians still talk in inches. Dave told us that the campground...

Hayden Valley, Yellowstone, WY The south entrance to Yellowstone was open the day before we were due to drive through, but it only stayed open for three hours. So when we got to it the next morning it was still closed which meant we would have to take the long way round. After going back through Jackson Hole, route 22 had a warning saying “no trailers”, so we had to find another alternative. We ran into a few blizzards along the way and texted friends to see if they knew what the roads were like – they had seen people sliding off the roads the day before! We also rang the road conditions number for Yellowstone: most of the roads were still closed and they were recommending snow tires or chains. As we got to the western entrance the sky seemed to clear up and Lindsay decided to ask the rangers what the roads were like: a bit icy, but he decided that it looked clear and the number of cars around would have cleared the roads. He was right. We made it through to Mammoth campground w...