Wednesday 2nd September - Drumheller

Well, our first experience of couch surfing with other people has been a very rewarding experience. The great benefit of couch surfing is being able to establish a relationship with someone who lives where you are visiting. We have been able to do that with Wendy and Charlie even though they have both had to work while we have been here. It's also nice to be able to talk about those little cultural difference which can sometimes be a bit hard to work out. Tonight we all went out to a Thai restaurant and the food was on par with Mullumbimby Golf Club, which means it was excellent. We had a very pleasant evening.

Our plan for today was to visit Drumheller and the badlands, an area a bit over two hours northeast of Calgary. The badlands were created at the end of the last ice age when the Red Deer River was dammed up behind a glacier. When the glacier gave way a huge amount of water was released gouging and eroding the whole of the Red Deer Valley. We left the plain country with its huge crops of wheat and arrived at Horshoe Canyon, the beginning of the badlands. 

Because of the erosion, quite a lot of Dinosaur fossils were exposed or left close to the surface in the area - one of the richest deposits of dinosaur remains in the world. We visited the Royal Tyrell Dinosaur Museum which has a huge collection of fossils, skeletons and displays of dinosaurs. Exceptional value for the $10 entry fee.

From the museum we continued on the Dinosaur trail along the valley, eventually crossing the river on a ferry and returning to Drumheller along its southern bank.

From Drumheller, we travelled east out of town to the Hoodoos, some extreme sandstone structures that have been eroded in unusual shapes over time. The harder rock on the top has protected the columns to some extent leaving amazing mushroom-like structures.

 Between Drumheller and Calgary is what looks like an extremely fertile agricultural area planted to cereal crops. Our first day in the car finished successfully with no problems associated with driving on the 'wrong' side of the road.

It was good to speak to Bradley on Skype this morning. Ain't technology marvellous.

Tomorrow we are off to Canmore via the Kananaskis.