Thursday 13 September 2012

It's Good To Walk


Time for The Rocky Mountains.

Jasper.

My accomodation was in a 44 bed dorm in the one hostel in town, which isn't in town it's 7km away. So not great but Jasper is a beautiful small town.

Found out that despite normally needing to book three months in advance one camping spot was available to walk The Skyline Trail - rated one of the best walks in the world. This is one of those lovely times when things just work out for you. Got myself kitted out with an extra pair of warm socks and set my phone alarm for the next morning.

I haven't seen that phone since. It was only being used as an alarm and had no SIM but I can't work out where it went. Fortunately I woke at 8am anyway, only an hour late, and figured even though I couldn't make the bus to the start of the trail I'd maybe be able to hitch a lift. Things work out for me moment number two: Found a guy in the hostel who was one of the other twenty people walking the trail that day, his friend was driving to the start and they could give me a lift. Too easy this travelling lark!

The group became five as their friends joined us and as we seemed to get on well we spent the first day walking the 22km together. I won't go on about the views because you can see them in pictures and they don't do it justice. Plus reading about pretty things is boring. I'll try and sum it up with one word: Incredible.
Cooked some supernoodles then went for a walk up to a waterfall where I saw an animal that I thought was a goat crossing the fall. It was too big for a goat though so maybe a deer? Then it faced me and it was quite clearly a wolf, reminded me of the gmork from The Never Ending Story. They are much bigger than all but the freakiest big dogs. It was the icing on the cake of the views I'd been spaffing over all day.

Both days had a great variety of jaw-dropping, incredible scenery and blah, blah, blah. Sorry, but it was dead good and the two days were the highlight of my trip so far.

After finishing the trail I still had 13km to go back to town and another 7km to the hostel. I tried hitching but nobody fancied picking me up so I was still walking as the sun started to go down. I'd left a note at the hostel to see if they could reserve me a bed when their computer was working again. Nothing was guaranteed but I was on a run of luck... which came to an end. No beds at the hostel.
I had enquired on my way through Jasper at an average looking motel. The girl on the desk said 'I'll write the price down for you'
'No need to do that I won't be offended' I replied. It's a good job she did write it down - $174. I pretended I'd think about it but we both knew the kid who needed a shower wasn't coming back.

The panic ended before it had begun as the campsite only 3km from town had space for a walk on spot so I headed back, finally getting a hitchhike lift from a family of South Africans and pitched my tent in the fading light. I was overdue a shower and they had some, indeed I liked the campsite so much I signed up for four nights.

The days in Jasper were good. Got my haircut one day, thought I was doing good flirting with the hairdresser until she said 'So what is this trip some sort of mid-life crisis?'. Ego dented, no big tip for the hairdresser.

Loved Jasper so much I wrote a poem, this is how it goes:
Mountainous peaks, peaceful creeks,
I'm in Jasper
And as per my wishes I will make this the time of my prime,
By drinking wine,
Really? Wine?
Sure a beer wouldn't go down better?
Alright, I'll have a beer.

Won't try poetry again for a while.

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