After a long and lazy camping morning after our first night in Wabasso, we headed into the quaint town of Jasper, stopping at the Athabasca Falls along the way. The spectacular pale blue river gushing over and through its self-made canyon is quite a sight. The potholes it has made over the years reminded me a bit of Bourke’s Luck in Mpumalanga, but the setting was completely different – lush alpine forests rather than open grassland.
The town of Jasper is absolutely stunning. Clapboard houses with turrets and bay windows, all painted in different colours. Loads of restaurants and tourist shops on cobbled streets decorated with hanging baskets of bright summer flowers. We located the fishing shop and got some advice on the best places to fish for rainbow trout, brook trout and pike. The Rockies are inundated with rivers, natural lakes, creeks and brooks, all teeming with fish which are surprisingly difficult to catch.
We headed to Sixth Bridge, which had a lovely picnic site on the banks of the jade green Maligne River and spent an afternoon on a sunny, rocky beach, the boys fishing for the elusive trout, while I took a lovely afternoon nap. Aaah, this is the life…
When seeing all the other people’s campsites back at Wabasso, we noticed that they all had bright blue tarpaulins strung up over their tents and eating areas. It has been raining sporadically so we followed suit and purchased our own bright blue tarp and string and fashioned a primitive roof over our eating area. Not only did we now look the part, but we were also settling into a routine of cooking, cleaning and packing (you can’t leave anything at all out because of the bears – it all has to be packed into the car). Could I be at risk of becoming a happier camper?
Fear not. At the strike of 3-30am we were woken by Luke who was crying in pain from stomach cramps. For the next hour or so, all of us were trying to help him by fetching warm water for a compress, making tea (both not easy in a pitch black campsite with no power), massaging his tummy and reassuring him that he would not die as he writhed in pain and hurled teenage abuse at us. In his eyes, we had no clue what we were doing and were guilty of child neglect as we were not rushing him straight to hospital. Eventually after a few painkillers and tons and tons of parental patience and TLC, he dozed off to sleep again. It took ages for the rest of us to fall under again, probably including all our neighbours, who must surely have wakened with all the commotion.
Sorry camping, but its back down the scale you go – I really am not fond of you.
We woke up late the next morning to the pelting of rain on our tent. No more pitter-patter, this was the real deal. The camping gods were not pleased with us. But thanks to our nifty blue tarp, we carried on regardless, giving the weather a middle finger while we made our tea and breakfast, abluted as best we could and all ended up sitting in the car with the heaters on to warm up.
Happy Camper Meter
Yours in travel
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