Day 54

23. June 2000, Rest day in Banff

Banff is a really beautiful city. It is a popular Canadian ski resort with nicely designed houses and surrounded by wonderful mountains and forests. There is also a wide selection of shops even now in summer, probably mainly thanks to the many Asian tourists (Japanese, Koreans but also Asian-Canadian) who enjoy the mountains. Banff offers all kinds of activities in summer such as golfing, mountain-biking, river-rafting. Another interesting fact about Banff is the number of Swiss, German, Austrian people living and working here. This has a long tradition and the first mountain guides and skiers in Banff were from the Alps. We ask one Swiss waiter about skiing in Banff. He says that the snow is perfect powder but the pistes in the Alps are larger area.
Other news of the day is the scrutineering of our car in the morning. But to the disappointment of some of our co-competitors this turns out to be rather unspectacular: After ten minutes of looking at dampers, brakes, engine-room, the chief scrutineer decides that there is nothing wrong with our car.

Overall 1 hour 19 minutes penalty

The official results can be looked up on this website

Mountains just before Banff

Many untamed rivers flowing through the Rockies...

...ideal conditions for river-rafting

 

The main street in Banff

Good thing about North America: Everything comes with an instruction manual.
We use the rest day for laundry, haircut (for Kaya), etc.

Roberto and Rita from Roma, Italy have recently come off road (damage still visible on their otherwise beautiful Lancia) and they are currently being scrutineered by Roger (with the torch) but as Rita's sign says, they are OK.