Hoodoos ......
Just out of Drumheller......
Hoodoo's.....also known as tent rock, earth pyramids & fairy chimney's. Beautiful, spooky........hard & soft at the same time. The First Nations people here believe mischievous spirits live in them..... An incredible, ancient landscape........pushed up & out of the land.....constantly evolving & eroding.... |
A pair of 'visible' mischievous spirits.......
Ghost town......
........with the incongruous name......Wayne!?! Really ?! It was a mining town that slowly faded away.... It was one of our detours on the way to the hoodoo's....how could we resist? There are 11 bridges to cross on the way there ( and back, because the road goes nowhere else!). The story goes that a ghost lives in the Rosedeer Hotel...on the third floor.....they don't let those rooms.... Sadly the hotel doesn't open until May...beginning of the summer season...so it was all pretty deserted.....fitting for a ghost town! |
Bridges.......
Also on the way to the Hoodoo's.......Rosedale. Beautiful suspension bridge over the Red Deer River....originally built so the miners could carry coal instead of ferrying it...... Not sure what has happened to me as I have aged........heights & I don't seem to get along? Man.....did my family make the most of this!!! (see notice below)....... Too bad....I was getting my butt over that bridge...... On the other side was an abandoned mine, certainly worth exploring.... |
Across the bridge & up the hill, there was steam coming out of the earth, so naturally we had to go & investigate it! Scramble up a fairly steep, gravelly hillside ( the first of many scrambles we will undertake over the next few days!?) to discover a coal bed smoking in the hillside....strange, interesting.....worth the climb! |
Let the fossil hunting begin!!!
|