Just over 100km, first of grasslands and outskirts of Calgary (these go on forever), then endless fields – canola, corn, peas, wheat.
Alberta is still green after about the same kind of rains we have had in Vancouver, and the colour suits it. Broken only by the luminous yellow of canola, or occasional ponds, the green rolls on under enormous blue skies to the Rockies in the distance and you just can’t help looking.
We started out buzzing down from Jen and Mike’s home to the flooding Nose Creek, which we followed out near the Deerfoot Trail (they name highways “Trails” here) past the quiet Calgary international airport to Airdrie, something of a bedroom town for Calgary. Here you can still make out the city skyscrapers over the hills as you ride through the town’s beautiful parklands and paved trails cross-crossing the creek to its source.
We also criss-crossed busy highways, including Highway 2 from Calgary to Edmonton – one of Canada’s busiest highway stretches. Cycling along its baby brother – the 2A – north from Airdrie was a slog. Still pretty landscapes, but a slog not made more popular by the pesky head wind.
But our day came to life at our lunch spot in Olifunt, a cafe in the lovely town of Carstairs. Here the food is excellent, made for you by the jovial hosts Brian and Darlene Banfield who have owned the joint since November. Their other guests were equally welcoming and a fellow cyclist shared a better route for us to take on to Olds, thus avoiding the 2A. This also took us through Didsbury, where pets of Fargo and Dances With Wolves were filled. Today’s trail trivia for you.
On the quieter back roads we could relax and enjoy our surrounds without having to brace against the buffeting from passing trucks. The canola was brighter, the fields a deeper green and we could watch both the ducklings on the ponds and the hawks eyeing them from above. The bird life was notable today, as was the small wildlife: so many hawks hunting and screeching, or warning us away from their nests. Coots, ducks and blackbirds skimmed around ponds. Prairie dogs scurried in and out of their holes next to the trail, and even a hare taunted dogs in Airdrie.
For Jen this was her longest ride ever but she cheerily pedalled into Olds at the end of the day’s work. For Gill and Bron the day took us well past the 2,000km mark on the Trans Canada Trail.
Dinner was at Grouchy Daddy’s (good burgers) and we crashed early at the Best Western near the Agricultural college which gave the evening air a particularly organic scent.
Total today: 102km
Today’s climb: 496m
Total distance: 2,083km
#TheGreatTrail
#TransCanadaTrail
Trans Canada Epic 
Thanks for the visit
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