Young Travel Writers 2015

Luke, 9

Last updated 21st July 2022

Author: Luke
Age: 9

My Auntie Fiona and Uncle Bill live near Calgary in Canada and we went to visit them last summer. I was really excited because they live on a farm and Uncle Bill has lots of tractors and he lets me help him. It takes nine hours to fly from Manchester airport to Calgary and I watched lots of films on the flight. When we arrived, Auntie Fiona and Uncle Bill were waiting for us and they were easy to spot as they were wearing cowboy hats!

It took about an hour to reach Auntie Fiona’s house and once we had unpacked I went out with Uncle Bill to look at the farm. They have a family of moose that live in the fields but even though I looked out of the window every night I didn’t see them. One day we went to Canmore and hired bikes, we do lots of cycling at home and we decided to ride on the Banff Pathway which is a cycle track linking Canmore and Banff. The man in the shop told us how to get to the pathway but when we reached the Trans Canada highway we couldn’t work out where to go. We stopped a lady and she told us we could cycle on the hard shoulder going the same way as the traffic and then cross the highway or we could go over the bridge and then ride up the hard shoulder facing the traffic. Mum and Dad weren’t keen on either but they said that facing the traffic was better as they didn’t want to cross the highway.

After a bit we joined the cycle path and cycled to Banff. It was hard work as it was uphill. The trucks on the motorway were huge and it was a bit scary. We also had to ride over electric mats which stop the bears leaving certain areas and we couldn’t put our feet down. When we arrived in Banff we had ice cream as a treat. Another day we went horseriding in the Rockies, the cowboys don’t wear riding helmets, just cowboy hats. My horse liked to be at the front and I really liked it. I hadn’t been on a horse before and it was fun. We saw a baby moose in the woods but he ran off when he saw us. Canada is famous for cowboys so we went to see a rodeo. The cowboys were riding bulls and it was really exciting to watch.

They also did chuck wagon racing and the cowboys kept losing their hats. Mum and Dad took us on a train ride from Stettler to Big Valley and we were attacked by bandits. There was lots of shooting and the bandit wanted money so we gave him some change and he went away. Mum and Dad knew the train was going to be held up but they hadn’t told us. We had a great holiday and I can’t wait to go back.