There is something a little surreal about a group of people pouring out of a bus into the washrooms of a visitors’ centre in the cool and drizzle of the morning. So there I stood, with a small audience, having a standup wash and changing bra and T-shirt in a public toilet somewhere near Mount Robson on the way to Jasper. 
Those who hadn’t taken advantage of the washrooms had been squatting with their laptops plugged into sockets, feverishly using the free wifi to get messages to the outside world. Living on a bus is at times fun, at other times very challenging. After 17 or 18 days you begin to feel there is no life outside the bunks and mats that are Green Tortoise. Every available space is used: overhead bunks also double as bag stowaway areas and have to be cleared when people want to sleep; the floor is littered with shoes and sandals; a cool box containing bottles and ice is stowed under one of the two tables; damp towels hang from the bunks like bunting after our hurried washroom visits on shore. 
Even Michele’s copy of the itinerary is beginning to look ragged and we still have a couple of weeks to go before it’s allowed to give up the ghost. We are a lone green ship passing through the most amazing landscape of British Columbia. We are beginning to feel like exiles from the real world, which, apart from stops along the way to take photos, we are not really part of. And I’m not even going to start on the dynamics of the group which would be a great research project – or even a springboard for a Big Brother contest…… So yes, it’s all a bit surreal.
Back to British Columbia and Alberta: the landscape is so magnificent, it takes your breath away. Jasper is a pretty little town and marks the start of the Icefields Parkway.
We followed the Athabasca River to its source at the Athabasca Glacier in the Columbia Icefield – so many glaciers all coming out in close proximity to each other. We stopped at this point and walked towards the Athabasca Glacier, over a large expanse of moraine brought down to the base of the mountain by the action of the glacier in fairly recent years. The glacier has receded to a point where it perches atop a high, rounded shelf. The extremely high banks of deposited lateral moraine below this shelf are an indication of the depth of the glacier before it melted. We’re talking of at least 200 feet. 
Other glaciers showed signs of calving off, with the ice sometimes dropping off shelves to the ground, or glacial lakes below. Quite different to the glaciers on the coast which calf directly into the sea.
All along this route we drove next to pale, spearmint green raging waters, interspersed with sandy moraine islands and rapids. The mountains appeared like giant slabs piled up against one another. Waterfalls, creeks and the frozen Hector Lake – all magic.
And then we were in Banff, and at the campsite at Tunnel Mountain there was a car parked at the side of the road. Some of my co- travellers waved at the girl standing beside the car as she ran excitedly to the driver’s side after spotting the bus, and I realised that Dave and Lilli had got to our meeting point before me. We only had about two and a half hours together before they had to set off back to Calgary, but it was very special.
I got to meet Lilli at last, and she’s lovely! And seeing my little brother at last on his home ground was fantastic. We had a great meal together at Coyote in Banff and talked our heads off. Wonderful.
Patamateria 