supermarket, and Ruth sorted out the kids. Canada is another one of these strange countries where you can’t buy alcohol in the supermarket, so we also had to visit the liquor store. With a heavier van and a much lighter pocket we trundled back up the road to the campsite and got down to some serious eating, drinking and general catching up!! Our van was wicked, there was a table in the middle with a couple of benches, and a sofa on the other side, so we could all fit in and leave the kids to sleep in Russ and Ruth’s van. The kitchen was fantastic, complete with a hob, oven, microwave, fridge and freezer. It even had a central heating system, which was handy and would become essential later on!! Even the shower was better than many at hotels we’ve stayed in!! And the amount of storage space we had was just incredible!! Whoever designed this van should get some kind of award!! When the night was finally over though we discovered the only real complaint that we had, in that when the sofa folded down to a

bed it was split two thirds to one third, so wasn’t quite as comfortable as it could have been, but hey ho, I guess you can’t have everything!!

The next morning despite a few slight hangovers we were keen to get out and see what Banff had to offer, and as it was a beautiful sunny day we headed off to the Banff Gondola, or cable car to anyone from Blighty!! This took us up to the top of one of the mountain ranges and gave the most stunning views of the surrounding glacial valleys and peaks. After seeing most of the major mountain ranges in the world it still amazes us that they all have they’re own unique character. The speciality of the Rockies seems to be the vast flat sides to the mountains which were so obviously once flat land before the Earth literally split and wrenched them out of the ground!! We did a short walk up to a higher summit where there was a solar observatory -