Coldplay at Madison Square Gardens

Imagine seeing Coldplay live at Madison Square Gardens, its going to be spectacular; epic even. The only problem is that everyone one else loves them and the world and his brother is going to be there too!

The jaw dropingly beautiful Rockies

We left Fernie bright and early at 7:30. We passed our first state line into Alberta as we crossed the Crownest Pass (and yes, there are crows there).

Once on the Cowboy Trail, Highway 22, the road became incredibly straight but the scenery was anything but boring and monotonous as we passed through cereal and hay country to cattle ranches as the road gained elevation. At its highest it reached 2000m above sea level which as a farmer seems crazy high for a ranch.

The Cowboy Trail, Alberta

Turning west at Longview we then headed for the Kananaskis Park, an area known for it beauty and at this time of year very popular with hikers.

Kananaskis Park, Alberta

The strange contorted mountains of the Kananaskis

When we reached the Banff National Park and the start of the Rockies we hit the main Canadian Highway 1 and went from one lane and no traffic to three lanes and traffic ! We had to stop for fuel and food and the service station we stopped at was swarming with people all heading the same way as us to see the Rockies. It was the Coldplay analogy and the concert was going to be awesome! the thing is at that moment Nick and Bec then realised that they might be more "going to see a start up band at the local bar on a Thursday night" kind of people.

So with trucks the size of sky scrapers growling past at 120kms/hr we high tailed up Highway 1 taking in the view but not stopping.

The road narrowed to one lane and the number of people teetered off at Lake Louise.

The scenery was stunning …it makes you feel very small and insignificant. The Columbia Icefield (glacier) was incredible and right next to the road. What was interesting was the amount it had receded since 1890 and they had markers along the road to the base of the glacier showing where it had reached on certain years.

We had a notion that we were going to ride all the way to jasper today, a whopping 740kms! So after 450 to 500kms we started looking for places to stay. The thing we didn’t realise is that it’s a national park and much like the Milford Sound Park in NZ, there are no settlements or places to stay to maintain the beauty of the area.

By the time we reached Jasper we couldn’t feel our butts …and there was one room left at $500 Canadian for the night! That didn’t sit well with Nick who made us do a wider search and we found a room an a hour away in a town called Hinton for $150. It wasn’t until we were on the way there (and had booked and paid for the room!) that we realised it was an hour in the wrong direction! Cest la vie!

830kms was travelled this day!