One wrong turn out of Banff and we got on our way back to Calgary. I’ve got the hang of this RV thing now. The roads are huge here and the campsites all set up for touring, makes things so easy. I’m not sure it would be so easy in the UK.
We had to fill up the LPG before returning the RV so drove around looking for a service station that could help us. This didn’t take long and I was surprised to find out we only used £4.50 of gas. This took care of our hot showers, washing up, cooking and heating in the mornings which I thought was surprisingly cheap.
Now we have done our trip I can work out how much fuel we used. We spent $466 CAD on approximately 345 litres of fuel. We travelled 1106km not including small trips around the shops and campsites etc, so our fuel economy for the huge RV was 31 liters per 100km or 9.1 miles per gallon (UK).
However, becasue the cost of fuel is literally half what we spend in the UK the overall cost would probably have been comparable. In the RV we spent about £230 of fuel for 687 miles, wheras my transit gets about 550 miles for £110 of fuel.
Dropping off the RV was easy and we found a group of 4 Brits who were just heading off on their trip through the Rocky’s. They were very thankful for the rest of the food we had and the chairs. They promised to hand them onto the next group when they returned it, and so hopefully a generosity chain has started.
Julia and Graham very kindly came and picked us up and took us to quirky coffee shop for a very late breakfast. We didn’t have enough milk left for cereal this morning so it had just been tea and coffee (and some chocolate for the drive) Graham also swung by the statues of tall people holding hands. I’m sure there is a more poetic title for the sculpture but that’s what it is. We had been literally 1 block the wrong way from finding them on our day in Calgary, which was a little frustrating. But thanks to the drive-by, I got a couple cool photos.
Back home as casa Julia’s we borrowed their industrial sized washer and dryer to get most of our clothes cleaned. We had completely run out now and it would save us a load of washing at home. While they were washing we showed our pictures of the trip with a cup of tea.
For our last meal together Julia and Graham took us to a crazy Teppenyaki restaurant. Here we were seated around a huge hotplate and our authentic (Indian) Japanese chef cooked our food. But not just cooked, he was a nutter, throwing knives and eggs around, making a huge show of the process and cracking terrible but funny jokes. Like when he was putting the veg on the hotplate, “authentic japanese broccoli…. from Costco”. And asking us if we had ever seen Japanese butterfly, before getting a huge dollop of butter and letting it fall onto the grill…. Dad jokes. It was loud, hot and messy but a really good fun way to end our stay.
I’ve really enjoyed Canada and our mini RV road trip. The driving is exceptionally boring on the long straight roads, but the scenery in the Rocky’s makes it interesting. The ease of access to trails, how well signposted they are and the outdoors energy here is great. I also love how the Canadians really relish summer. They go hard while the weather is good hiking, climbing, paddling and camping. Then at the end of the day, on more than one occasion, we saw people just chilling by the river or lake with a bottle of wine and the view just enjoying the sunset and warm summer breeze. It was pure enjoyment, surrounded by the most spectacular scenery.