Weather in Calgary and other things...

The weather in Calgary is pretty erratic, we went for a hike on Monday (more on that later) and the weather was nice, temperature in the mid 20s and sunny. Tuesday morning was not that great; cloudy overcast skies and a chilly breeze. This morning really takes the cake though. We get woken up at 5am by gusty winds slamming the blinds against the window. Stepping out of the car is a shock, it's 7 degrees, winds up to 50km/h and rain streaming horizontally... talk about rapid weather changes! It's a big change from Singapore, where it's hot, humid and steamy everyday. Even Vancouver isn't as bad, it just rains 8 months a year.

Anyway back to the hike. Since Esther had a day off, we decided to make the most of our last week in Calgary. We drove out to Banff in the morning and headed to Tunnel Mountain. The initial first few minutes were quite steep, especially for hiking neophytes like us, but it soon levelled out and we were going at a steady pace. The views were nice down below, but as we moved further up, the views became more and more spectacular, allowing us to see the downtown area of Banff, the Banff Springs Hotel and Banff Hot Springs easily. Near the top, the trail looped around to the other side of the mountain, showing us a view of a golf course way down below and beautiful vistas stretching for miles.

Banff Springs Hotel in the distance

Staring into the distance... think this was about the halfway point

Round the other side of the mountain... it was a sheer cliff down from here! Thank goodness for the railing!