As the Formula 1 season is on summer break I’m going to blog today about my summer holiday. I loaded up the minivan with my four children and husband and we took off on an epic ten day road trip to the Rocky Mountains and then back home. Our first stop was Clearwater, British Columbia. I mostly chose this destination as it was about a 6 to 7 hour drive from our house (taking the long way through the Fraser Canyon route) so it was far enough away from home to seem like we were away. Plus we’d never been there before so it held an element of adventure.

Clearwater is the gateway to Wells Gray Provincial Park, famous for Helmcken Falls. It was impressive but personally I preferred Dawson Falls because you can get closer to them. Of course, if you really want to get close to the water, then you can hike to Moul Falls where you can actually go behind the waterfall. We saved that one for next time as we were pretty hiked out.

We stayed in an amazing cottage on the edge of a meadow at the base of Battle Mountain. The cottage was the home of some original settlers but has been modernized to make a comfortable base from which to explore the surrounding countryside. There was no TV, Internet or cell service so it was a real escape from modern life. Unfortunately, due to extreme dry conditions, there was a campfire ban in the area so we couldn’t have a fire and roast marshmallows or make s’mores. Maybe next time. If you’re going to be travelling through the area, then I highly recommend the place, there’s also a B&B up at the main house if you prefer something a little less self-catering, here’s the website (http://www.clearwaterspringsranch.com/). Another note, there are no stores for over 30km so bring what you need, it’s a long drive back to town.

In addition to hiking and seeing waterfalls, there is also white-water rafting and canoeing in the area and I’m sure fishing. Plus loads of wildlife. I saw a couple of deer, which isn’t anything that special to us as we have deer locally. However there was plenty of bear scat in the area and we had to take the barbeque into the cottage each night so they didn’t come up onto the deck. So if you want a taste of Canada with a super comfortable bed to sleep in each night, this is the place for you.

Our next stop was Jasper in Alberta. Jasper was amazing, so I’ll blog about that another time. The next Formula 1 race is in Belgium at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit, one of my favourites, so I’ll talk a bit about Brussels. See you back here on September 1st.