Thursday August 27^th, Cypress Trees Provincial Park, Alberta, Canada

Into the small town of Fort Benton this morning, it really has a lot of history and the town has done a great job of showing the historic buildings and points. A number of the original buildings are still standing, and the hotel has been restored and looks amazing. The Missouri flows quite fast through town, although shallow and pretty dirty.

The road north east to Havre was traditional prairie, and as most of the harvesting had been done, it looked quite grey and barren. All in all quite a “forgettable” drive.

We have seen a few of the original old wooden grain elevators probably built in the early 1900’s, they are looking quite derelict, but are still standing.

Stopped in Havre for a late lunch, had a chat with the girl at the information centre, and made the decision to head north into Canada, rather than further East, as there is just more of the same land.

The 40 mile drive to the border crossing at Wild Horse was through more cropped prairies without a tree or a hill, and there was hardly a vehicle on the road, it felt really strange.

There was a nice young chap at immigration, I think he was pleased to see a “customer”. Such a change after the very officious guy that dealt with us when we entered Canada at the start of the trip.

Ian was laughing though as he had to empty our wood bin of all the carefully gathered, cut and split wood he had accumulated into a big bin….because of Dutch Elm disease no wood can be brought into Alberta.

Then it was onto another long empty road for 30 miles to the Provincial Park. But as we headed north the air cooled to about 25 degrees and the countryside started to get greener and the land developed more contour.

No fire tonight….the only wood you can use has to be bought at the park entrance, and at $4 for a small bundle, Ian couldn’t bring himself to get any!