The view from Cat Creek in Kananaski Country

The last stage of our journey from Vancouver to Calgary, travelling today to Calgary from Banff down the Trans Canada Highway then south down Highway 40 through Kananaski Country then on to Black Diamond, Turner Valley and Okotoks finally hitting Highway 2 to find our way to the final campground at Calgary West.

I chose this route as it takes in many of the places we used to visit in the 1980s and 1990s when my first wife's family lived in Okotoks. It's 25 years since I was last on Highway 40 and I was eager to visit Cat Creek day park. Imagine my disappointment when we found Cat Creek was closed for construction. The only one to be closed on the whole route. We were planning to walk the Cat Creek trail a short hike to a waterfall but that was not possible.

Chris reckons the construction is due to quite severe floods in June 2013 when up to 180mm rain fell in 12 hours in the Highwood River basin capture area, compared with an average of 120 to 150mm for the whole month.

Disappointment again when we couldn't find the Foothills Ice Cream shop in Turner Valley. Not surprising though, it is a long time but we did see that Foothills Ice Cream was still for sale.

Kananaski Country and Highway 40, known as the Bighorn Highway, is truly spectacular, on a par with the Icefields Parkway in my opinion. It hasn't any glaciers or Icefields or exceptionally high mountains but the scenery is jaw dropping. We saw lots of Bighorn Sheep on the roadside and sometimes in the middle of the road as well as many cattle on or adjacent to the highway and also a real cowboy driving cattle along the road. The only downside to the route is that the southern section from Kananaski Village to the south gates is closed from 1st December until 15th June which somewhat restricts access.

Okotoks had changed beyond recognition, so many more subdivisions and retail parks surrounding where the family used to live. We drove along the roads where their different houses were but could not recognise the precise building. Jenny couldn't remember the numbers! We did see their third place, an acreage near De Winton, so one out of three wasn't a total write off. The downtown part of Okotoks had not changed much, fewer shops and the IGA grocers store had gone, understandably with all the new development. The D'Arcy Ranch was now a golf course, Highway 2 now an 8 lane highway and much more suburban sprawl.

Thank goodness for Apple Maps, it only made one mistake in the whole journey today sending us the wrong way down the Crowchild Trail. Otherwise it brought us right to the door. A day in Calgary tomorrow then we hand the RV back and fly to San Diego. Today's extra is the view from Banff Avenue in downtown Banff this morning.