End of North America

Yellowstone National Park, WY, USA - With a week of nothing planned I decided to cross the border in my wreck and make my way down to Yellowstone. I drove through Washington, Idaho and Montana and experienced my first -10°C weather. Yellowstone closes for the winter and I was there 4 days before it closed. It felt pretty much like just me and the animals because the park was practically empty. I made two days of it and slept in the car next to Yellowstone Lake in the -12°C weather as it snowed overnight.



I saw a lot of elk and a few buffalo and also a bald eagle but the bears, moose and wolves still managed to elude me. I also checked out the hot pools and Old Faithful before heading back into Montana.

Bozeman, MT - I spent a night here and went to the movies and then went to the Rocky Mountain Museum the next day. Montana is home to most of the dinosaurs discovered in North America and I got to see the largest T-Rex skull ever found.



Missoula, MT - I arrived on a Saturday afternoon and with accommodation being pretty expensive here I decided to go on a ride-along with the Missoula police’s night shift. I again was paired up with a young cop, Ben Woods, and had another fairly quiet night with a couple of arrests for warrants and breach of probation and we broke up a party of college kids. When it quietened down one of the guys who was on the SWAT team took me to see their gear and I tried some of it out which was cool. Then after dealing with a young drunk who was trying to get on a freight train it was over again and I carried on north.



I then had a few uneventful days and crossed back into Canada to drop off the car. Then back on the Greyhound and with a week to go I went to Calgary where I met up with my Melbourne friend from camp, Sarah. She had a friend over from Oz also named Sarah and we rented another rent-a-wreck (which was way better) and headed to Banff.

Banff, AB - One month on from when I was first in Banff, it was a lot colder with snow everywhere. Like I did last time in Banff, we spent both nights out on the town and during the day it was so cold so we went to the hot springs for an couple of hours.



Calgary, AB - Back to Calgary for the weekend and we went out to a club called Garage where we were treated as VIPs because Sarah’s cousin goes out with the DJ/owner. We got free drinks and got access to the VIP area. The next night we had a night off and went to an Italian restaurant for dinner and then went and saw Borat at the movies. Very funny.



Edmonton, AB - With only a few days to go we headed north, into the cold. It was so cold that I could put my beers outside for about 30 minutes and they were near frozen. We woke up the next day and it was even colder with blizzard conditions. We headed off to the West Edmonton Mall (the largest mall in the world) but only made it 50 metres because of a puncture. What made the fact I had to change a tyre in snow at -12°C worse was that the rental didn’t have a tyre iron to undo the nuts. After a couple of hours wasted organising tyre repair we made it to the mall where we played mini golf, went on the indoor rollercoaster and did some shopping. We checked out the indoor water park but it cost too much so we gave it a miss. The next day we went ice-skating in the mall before heading back to Calgary.



Calgary, AB - That night we went to the ice hockey to watch the Calgary Flames play my favourite team the St. Louis Blues. We got nose-bleed seats cos the others cost too much but we saw the game fine and there was a great atmosphere and I got to see a fight. Unfortunately the Blues lost 3-0. The last week was a great way to finish up in Canada, thanks girls, and my next leg was South America.