this was another of my favourite days. I have to say, i loved all days really on balance, tho there were obv a few better than others 
. this was one of those perfect days
we woke up early and had a quick brekkie and drove to the HQ of the rafting company. we were the first there, and had time to get ready and all excited the other 14 or so then joined and we got into a minibus and were off. the leaders were v informative. ours is in college doing wildlife filming, and rafts all his holidays, having rafted around the world. the other chap was from australia. they gave loads of info as we drove to the kootenay river, and went on a logging trail to get to the getting in point. we were all doing a half day session, and as it was a family rafting experience – ie not particularly wild – it was mostly first timers or those with younger kids. BB was most definately the youngest. SHe was also adamant she was going to paddle too. we therefore got put with the most experienced leader
SB chose to sit right at the front and DH next to her. BB had to be at the back so she could go to the middle in the more rapidy bits, but sit on the edge and paddle otherwise. so i went with her. I had worried abit that i would look like a crazy big lady who shouldn’t be doing this kind of thing, but have decided not to bother worrying. so we all got in and pushed off. The first bit was a bit rapid-like and SB loved getting a face full of water and leading the ‘stroke’ on her side of the boat. on my side i had a skilled older dad at the front and then 2 hopeless pre-teen boys then me, sometimes with BB. i was a bit concerned the boat would just go round in circles!! luckily i am not too bad at powering a paddle, so the tangle in the middle seemed to match the other side
as we intermittantly paddled and drifted down the kootenay we saw birds, deer and our guide pointed out minerals and rocks, trees devastated by the pine beetle, talked about water, melts, river levels, rock flour and rafting as a career. He was very interesting and seemed to have done a lot of traveling through the rockies and knew his stuff – always good when you have ppl like me on board i did enjoy the paddling, and the fact the water is soooo cold! made my cold feet keep the rest of the body cool. we had our nereus case for the camera, so had a few more admiring looks for that. should have bought a load and sold them on the way round!!
In the middle there was a v comprehensive snack break – coffee, hot choc, cold drinks, cakes, cheese and biscuits [optional meat] and an opportunity to swap positions on the boat. not many swapped, and sb got to keep pole position we paddled off, with BB getting to do a fair bit of paddling. when she hadn’t been for a while she would ask me to ask when she could paddle again. about 5 mins before the end she started asking when it would finish – so obviously half day was the perfect length for her. we all disembarked and piled into minibus for drive home, bb fell asleep on sb’s lap in minutes [should have had her with a parent!] this turned out to be a shame as we saw both a black and a grizzly bear, and poor BB was asleep. they were pretty close to each other, but not being agressive.
Back in radium hotsprings we went to an odd icecream bar. all but sb had an icecream, she chose a maple syrup shake, and despite her protestations, i realised it must be fairly awful, and persuaded her to let me buy her an icecream we then went to the parks canada information whilst DH did some shopping. the girls put in their completed yoho xplorer booklets and the lovely parks canada man took them through swearing an oath to protect canada’s wildlife and gave them a certificate and tag. we also picked up the kootenay xplorer booklet, and did some of the suggested activities at the tiny little museum room. this had a bit on the local tribes language and mythology, the rather shameful period of trying to stamp this out and also an interesting bit on forest creatures and fires. Back to the van and we set off.
The first stop was suggested by the xplorer booklet, at the redwall [handily an earthcache and geocache site] where we looked at the iron rich rocks, we went past where we had not that long back seen the 2 bears, but they had gone – to BB disappointment. there is a lovely view spot just as you get to the kootenay valley, so we paused there to look, read the info boards before driving on. I had given the girls a packed lunch for their table, so they were just munching away we did stop for a munch tho by the kootenay crossing. the girls enjoyed running up and down and paddling before we set off for the floe trail. along the way we saw a herd of white tailed deer. i only saw the mum and babies, but BB pointed out all the bucks in the grass she has a good eye, and also most of the possession of the binoculars
the floe trail was also something suggested by the xplorer booklet, as there had been a fire in 2003 and it suggested looking for various things, including regeneration. it was absolutely nature noise only, there are v few vehicles on the highway, and we soon lost the sound of them. we were supposed to be in tight 4′s – which the girls not so keen on! so we played a traffic light game of them running forward on green, stopping on red etc. i imagine all that noise would have kept bears at bay there was a great ricketty bridge over the river, and that is where we turned back. there were lots of berry plants on route, not yet ripe, but would be a bear magnet later in the season! with older bb we would perhaps have planned less motorhome travel and fewer but longer walks.
our next stop was at paint pots – again in the xplorer booklet, but something we would have done anyway. a lovely walk through forest – which had a smell of vegetarian stew i thought, but laughed at by my family , and the girls ziggzagging walking along logs like beams. [still not managing tight 4's tho i did better when saw another family walking back with bearspray in hand!] across a v wobbly bridge and finally to the ochre beds. we saw lots of tracks, which we thought were a variety of deer, bear, wolf and wolverine. [possibly!] the girls paddled in the ochre, and i got bitten to pieces. they drew pictures with the paint and eventually we move on as the day was lengthening and it is v bear contry-ish. We had a good paddle and wash of feet in the clear icy stream before back to the motorhome.
as time was drawing short, and we were heading for banff before dark, we didn’t get to walk along the marble canyon like i had hoped, tho did stop briefly at the great divide for photos and a geocache. the girls didn’t get out, i think they were getting tired again also playing games as we travelled. they did very much like travelling in a motorhome.
finally we drove towards banff, taking the v slow but beautiful bow valley route – tho no bears – all the way to 2jack campground. mostly as we thought we would breakfast at lake minnewanka. we should have seen the signs when we were surrounded by mozzies, and the parks canada girl on reception only opened her mesh screen for nanoseconds! girls collected wood and DH did BBQ for tea, but not perhaps the best place for it since we were bitten to pieces. it was our last opportunity tho for a rockies fire, so definately done :). minimal going out after that though