Canmore - Closer to the mountains

Picked up the rental car this morning and left Calgary behind. Anticipation building wondering what kind of car it would be and it was a ... Hyundai, so much for driving a classic American car then on the freeways! Very straightforward introduction to driving on the right hand side, with help from TomTom which we brought over from England. Driving was very laid back with little traffic and very friendly drivers. Very nice to drive at a relaxing pace (110km/h seemed to be the maximum on freeway with most of the non-freeway road between 40-60 km/h) whilst appreciating the oncoming mountains.

Canmore is just a little South of Banff National Park and you can see the Rocky Mountains rising up all around you. Spent a day in more sunshine walking around a trail with great scenery. We followed this up with a nice afternoon visit to the Grizzy Paws bar/restaurant. Certainly seemed to be aimed at men with young and pretty serving girls, locally brewed beers with names like Angry Bear and some great steaks and burgers. We also booked in for a day shared between horse riding on a trail cowboy style and white water rafting later in the week. They certainly like outdoors activities with plenty of opportunities to hire mountain bikes, swim, fish, rafting, horse riding, rock climbing and caving to name a few of the tempting activities.