Welcome to Canada

My Nuffield journey has begun, first country visited is Canada, and what a country it is. Having arrived in Calgary with my fellow "Nuffy", Jake freestone, and picked up our hire car, just a small little runaround.

 

We headed off to find our first host, Ryan Bonnett, 2012 Canadian Nuffield Scholar, where we were made very welcome and enjoyed some great hospitality. One of the great things about Nuffield is the ability to turn up a relative strangers doorstep and be made to feel at home.

As we had no visits booked up for the day we headed off into the Rocky Mountains. After leaving the sprawling city of  Calgary behind, the countryside began to open up into vast tracts of  farmland with the Rocky Mountains looming on the Horizon. As the scenery started to change from farmland to forest and the mountains got bigger, we spotted some Elk grazing on the side of the highway. The highway is all fenced off from the forest and there are purpose built overpasses to allow wildlife to cross safely .We had a quick stop in Banff, before heading to Lake Louise.



Lake Louise
 

Lake Louise is a large glacial Lake surrounded by high peaks and forest, with the Victoria Glacier (named after Queen Victoria) high up in the mountains at the far end of the lake. We carried on into the mountains taking in the amazing scenery and landscapes, to reach the highlight of the day for me, Lake Morraine. As we arrived at the lake a young male grizzly bear was happily grazing away on some dandelions right by the car park!

 

 

Lake Morraine, is also a glacial lake surrounded by forest and the Ten Peaks range of mountains. The contrasting colours of the water, trees, rock and big blue sky were simply breathtaking.

Lake Morraine

 

After leaving the stunning Lake Morraine, we headed back to Calgary along the Bow Valley Parkway, with a final stop at Johnson's canyon. Johnson's canyon is a narrow canyon carved out of the limestone rock, that you can walk up along catwalks fixed to the canyon walls.

 

The lower falls at Johnson's Canyon