British Columbia

July 14th, and time to head out of Jasper National Park and seek out the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies, Mount Robson. This staggering sight is hidden from view until the last moment, and takes your breath away if you are lucky enough, as we were, to catch it when the top isn't shrouded in mist. As I recall, Mount Robson stands at 3954 m, more than three Ben Nevises stacked on top of one another.

Continuing west towards Vancouver, we left the grandeur of the Rockies' national parks to explore the provincial parks of British Columbia. Again, our route was lined with beautiful forests and spectacular mountain scenery, although instead of the pristine, showcase grandeur of the Rockies the BC mountains showed evidence of human life in the shape of farms, ranches, settlements, and hydro-electric power plants. No wild animals in evidence here, but lots of gleaming well-groomed horses to admire.

The wild flowers that lined the roads and filled the meadows were a delight - some we recognised (ox-eyed daisies, purple vetch, lupins, dog roses, wood anemones) and others we didn't (Indian paintbrush).

Our journey along the Cariboo Gold Rush trail took us through some interesting old towns, and we enjoyed driving the back roads through the mountains, stopping by picturesque lakes and tumbling, rushing whitewater creeks. One part of the trip I didn't care for so much was a twelve mile stretch marked 'unimproved road' on our map. This was basically a gravelled pass winding up and down a mountainside with steep gradients (ie, 1 in 4) and drops of hundreds of feet down, and the possibility of landslides from the sheer cliffs above. Imagine that you are in a left hand drive car, on the wrong side of the road, feeling as if you should have a steering wheel in your hands, no safety barriers, and you might understand why this was a nail-biting, bum-clenching white knuckle ride rather than a pleasant afternoon outing.

Our few days in BC were blessed with hot daylong sunshine, and we only broke the rural idyll to take a stroll round Whistler and note its preparations for the 2010 winter Olympics. After a night in a fairly seedy motel on the wrong side of the tracks a couple of hours from our destination, we resumed our journey through the impressive coastal mountains, became excited at our first sighting of the ocean cradled in the estuary and framed by pine forests, and finally reached Vancouver to hand back our hire car without disaster.

Our ferry crossing to Vancouver Island was pleasant and uneventful, and we were excited to see Maggie and Ben waiting to greet us in arrivals.