Globetrotting Grandies: Wednesday 11th July 2018

Wednesday 11th July 2018 – Trans Canada Highway take me home - Into the Rockies and British Columbia

Well, all good things must come to an end and we’ve left the comfort of Ian and Elaine’s house to head west into the Rocky Mountains. We travelled for a bit on the Trans Canada Highway before turning off after Banff at Castle Mountain heading towards Radium Hot Springs. We found a nice free campsite at the trailhead for Paint Pots in the Kootenay Mountains. We had a short walk on the trail to where they used to mine ochre in various colours for paints. It was quite different. We couldn’t go any further as the trail had been closed due to a bridge washout.

Heading into the Rockies

Here's our view for the night

The bridge to the trail

Tree jamb in the river

Thursday 12^th July 2018 – Radium Hot Springs BC

Drove to Radium and had a big soak in the hot springs and a look around the town before heading further west and travelling along the Columbia Valley wetlands. There are supposed to be thousands of birds here at this time of year but alas we hardly saw any at all. We found a nice rest area by the lake where we spent the night.

A nice soak in the tub

Nearly hit a bear (just tricking)

Down through the pass into Radium

Nice street lamps

Some of the scenery along the way

Tonight's view

And tonight's wildlife which we could almost hand feed

Friday 13^th July 2018 – Ainsworth Hot Springs BC

Well this is getting to be a habit. We drove to Cranbrook this morning for a look around the heritage buildings, had lunch at yet another wetlands with not many birds before heading up the other side of Kootenay Lake to catch the longest free ferry ride in North America which took us on a 35 minute journey across to the other side of the lake where we took the 31 north to Ainsworth Hot Springs for another soak. These ones have caves that you can swim through and were quite hot about 39c with a cooler pool of about 37c. As we’ve already had a shower at the pools we can free camp again, this time just about 2klms down the road from the springs by the side of the lake.