Hey
guys!
Two days ago we woke up, had our Maple Crunch cereal, and started the drive
from Penticton to Revelstoke. We stopped at a quite large town called Vernon
along the way for a break and lunch. For lunch, we went into the first place
that we saw, called the Bean There Bistro, which happened to have really
awesome food. Vernon also had random paintings on walls throughout town. We
thought this one was pretty cool:
We then continued on to Revelstoke and I watched the movie 'Charlie's
Angels' on my ipad in the car. When my movie finished, Mum and Dad were telling
me about all the "cool" things they saw, that I missed out on, like a
road sign to look out for moose, and a salmon habitat. We arrived in Revelstoke
and checked into our hotel. It was really windy when we arrived. We went
exploring in downtown and it started raining! We went into shops to hide from
the rain, and I ended up getting a nice spray jacket. I wore it straight away,
but as soon as I got it, the rain stopped. I got so excited in this town's
souvenir store as well. They had funny t-shirts, and also sold "Bear
Bells" to keep bears away from you when you're in the woods! We came back
to the hotel to relax for a bit then went to the hotel's 112 restaurant for
dinner. It was really good food. We all had steaks and then shared a chocolate
mousse. We then headed to Grizzly Plaza, which is the heart of downtown
Revelstoke, and checked out the live band that was playing that night. We were
all wearing our jackets, it was a bit chilly!
Our sleep in was interrupted yesterday morning by Dad setting off
the alarm to our hotel room’s safe. We then went down for our free continental
breakfast and toasted our bagels round the wrong way! Dad experimented by
putting both cream cheese and peanut butter on his blueberry bagel. Yuck! But
he insisted it tasted nice. We then relaxed and bludged around the hotel for a
while. We went down to the local pharmacy and got an underwater camera for
kayaking, SPF 60 sunscreen (who even knew it went that high?!), and “deep wood
off” insect repellent since we didn’t think our Australian repellent would work
against Canadian bugs. We then had time to kill before kayaking. We read our
kindles/books for awhile before getting bored and heading out to the edge of
town to get a photo of these 3D bear sculptures.
Close by was an animal store and we went in expecting to see cute Canadian puppies and hamsters but the only pet they had in there was a guinea pig. So disappointing. After smothering ourselves in sunscreen and bug spray we headed down to Upper Arrow Lake for kayaking. We met the tour guides who happened to be British, and waited for the rest of the tour group to arrive. There were two girls from South Australia, a guy from Vancouver, and two ladies from Japan. We had to get suited up in our life jackets and crocs for footwear! We then had a lesson on land before heading to the water.
Mum and Dad ended up with a double kayak. It took a little
while for us to get used to it but we got the hang of it pretty quick and it
was really fun. We ended up probably kayaking about 6km all up. The water was
really cold and luckily none of us capsized! The tour guides took lots of
photos of us for us to keep.
About halfway through the tour we stopped all together in the middle of the lake and the tour guides got us to yell different things like “MOOSE” and “COOEE” to the mountains and hear the echo come back to us. You actually had to wait a bit for it to bounce back for you to hear it. It was so awesome. The view of the mountains from the lake was fantastic. We headed back to land and got a free bag of lunch.
Afterwards we headed back to the hotel to freshen up. We then got in the car and went to Mount Revelstoke National Park and went up the Meadows in the Sky Parkway. We drove up 26km to the highest point you could reach by car. There was lots of hairpin turns, or as they call them over there, switchbacks. While we were driving up there Dad saw a squirrel run across the road. It probably was one, but Mum and I didn't want him to win our wildlife competition so we insisted it was just a leaf blowing across the road, haha! We reached the first lookout and as soon as we got out of the car we were attacked by mosquitoes and flies. Lucky our bug spray lasts 8 hours! We saw the lookout and Balsam Lake. We then hiked (yes the Bressington’s hiked!!) about 1.5km up to the summit of Mount Revelstoke.
We may have been huffing and puffing at the top but we made it! We felt like we were getting in touch with nature, and I hugged a tree! Haha! We also saw a group of people that were using the bear bells to warn off bears! We got worried because we didn't have any. Along the way we saw these claw marks on a tree. Definitely from a bear.
The summit has really spectacular views of all the snow-capped mountains and it made the walk so worth it.
The flies and mosquitoes up there were insane. Even though we had our bug spray on, they still buzzed around our head and made me scream and dance around crazy trying to swat them away.
We headed back down to the car, disappointed we didn’t see any wildlife. Dad thought we heard a growl, so we stopped and listened, but it turns out it was just his stomach growling, haha. Once we were at the car park we saw a chipmunk!! It was so cute!
We then drove back down the mountain and to our hotel. We felt so dirty and gross, so we took showers. Our limbs were so sore from all our exercise and we felt like just collapsing, but we went out to a Japanese restaurant across the road for dinner. It was delicious. This morning we toasted our bagels round the right way! Woo! On the TV during breakfast, the news was reporting about a lady in Vancouver that was attacked by a raccoon! I hope that doesn't happen often... We started our drive to Banff, where we're spending 4 nights. We stopped into a town called Golden for a break and lunch. We then crossed the border into the state of Alberta and had to put our clocks an hour ahead. The radio stations along the way were so country!! Banff is a really beautiful town. Much bigger than the towns we've stayed at before this! There's a lot more tourists, and pretty much every second store is a souvenir store, so I'm in heaven! I miss you guys!
About halfway through the tour we stopped all together in the middle of the lake and the tour guides got us to yell different things like “MOOSE” and “COOEE” to the mountains and hear the echo come back to us. You actually had to wait a bit for it to bounce back for you to hear it. It was so awesome. The view of the mountains from the lake was fantastic. We headed back to land and got a free bag of lunch.
Afterwards we headed back to the hotel to freshen up. We then got in the car and went to Mount Revelstoke National Park and went up the Meadows in the Sky Parkway. We drove up 26km to the highest point you could reach by car. There was lots of hairpin turns, or as they call them over there, switchbacks. While we were driving up there Dad saw a squirrel run across the road. It probably was one, but Mum and I didn't want him to win our wildlife competition so we insisted it was just a leaf blowing across the road, haha! We reached the first lookout and as soon as we got out of the car we were attacked by mosquitoes and flies. Lucky our bug spray lasts 8 hours! We saw the lookout and Balsam Lake. We then hiked (yes the Bressington’s hiked!!) about 1.5km up to the summit of Mount Revelstoke.
We may have been huffing and puffing at the top but we made it! We felt like we were getting in touch with nature, and I hugged a tree! Haha! We also saw a group of people that were using the bear bells to warn off bears! We got worried because we didn't have any. Along the way we saw these claw marks on a tree. Definitely from a bear.
The summit has really spectacular views of all the snow-capped mountains and it made the walk so worth it.
The flies and mosquitoes up there were insane. Even though we had our bug spray on, they still buzzed around our head and made me scream and dance around crazy trying to swat them away.
We headed back down to the car, disappointed we didn’t see any wildlife. Dad thought we heard a growl, so we stopped and listened, but it turns out it was just his stomach growling, haha. Once we were at the car park we saw a chipmunk!! It was so cute!
We then drove back down the mountain and to our hotel. We felt so dirty and gross, so we took showers. Our limbs were so sore from all our exercise and we felt like just collapsing, but we went out to a Japanese restaurant across the road for dinner. It was delicious. This morning we toasted our bagels round the right way! Woo! On the TV during breakfast, the news was reporting about a lady in Vancouver that was attacked by a raccoon! I hope that doesn't happen often... We started our drive to Banff, where we're spending 4 nights. We stopped into a town called Golden for a break and lunch. We then crossed the border into the state of Alberta and had to put our clocks an hour ahead. The radio stations along the way were so country!! Banff is a really beautiful town. Much bigger than the towns we've stayed at before this! There's a lot more tourists, and pretty much every second store is a souvenir store, so I'm in heaven! I miss you guys!
Love,
Emily
Emily
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