Surprising, that after a very long day we only slept about six hours, and then arose. After a large breakfast (for us at least), we went for a drive around Calgary with Naushad and Rozi, starting off heading east a couple of kilometres to pass their “rural” 2 acre section, covered in scrub. Then it was of heading south to see some life style blocks, mainly owned by Punjabis. There is a large Punjabi population in Calgary and Vancouver, which explains the signage in Punjabi at Vancouver airport.
We then headed west towards the city, stopping at a mosque in a very expensive looking suburb, before heading into the city on 17th Avenue and then turning north. Crossed the C-Train tracks on 7th Avenue, shortly after passing under the CP mainline through Calgary. Some Herzog aggregate hoppers were stationary on the line. I don’t know if it was a stationery train or a ballast/work train.
Grabbing some takeaway coffees at Tim Horton’s near the airport we then parked at a viewing carpark while we had coffee and watched planes departing into the strong SE wind.
The carpark has identification boards for plane types and airlines that use Calgary, and the map there quoted that Calgary has the longest civil aviation runway in Canada.
Also saw a hawk that hovered over the carpark and then landed inside the airport boundary. I later identified it as a Swainson’s Hawk
We left here and headed to a large supermarket for some fresh produce. Interesting to see the range available, including live fish, crabs and crayfish, with just about every vegetable you could imagine. We had been told before leaving NZ that Canada was expensive, but what we have seen so far shows this not to be the case. The vegetables (those that we can get in NZ) were same or cheaper price, and milk is less than $1 per litre.
Then it was back home to lunch and a relaxing afternoon, before our travelling around starts in ernest.
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