Day Four. The start of the Cowboy Trail.

The Cowboy Trail is a 700km stretch of highway nestled between the rocky mountains and Alberta's prime ranching country in the Canadian prairies. Some of you will know that I have a bit of a thing for cowboys, so when I heard about this route I thought I'd rather like to travel along it. A lot of the attractions are now closed for the season, but a few were still open like Head-Smashed-In-Buffalo Jump, which we visited in the morning.


Quite possibly the funniest museum sign we've ever seen.

What is a buffalo jump, you may be thinking? Good question, but it’s a place where native people used to be clever enough to channel a herd of buffalo over a cliff to their deaths, so that they could kill vast numbers and live off the meat for the winter – a bit like lemmings if you will, but hairier…


The actual cliff where the buffalo were herded to their deaths.


The large-scale model within the museum (no buffalo were harmed in the making of this!)

And another interesting fact – it’s not called Head-Smashed-In after the buffalo. Oh no – a young brave wanted to see the killings for himself one year, so he found a spot under the cliff to watch the proceedings. Big mistake – it was a bountiful kill and the buffalo carcasses were so many that he ended up getting squashed underneath them all – doh!

It was a great museum, and we learnt a lot about the history of the native people of the area - the Blackfoot tribe. We also saw the actual cliff, which is very well preserved and cordoned off with a viewing platform and a trail that winds around the area. We could see why it's been given world heritage UNESCO status and is of such cultural importance. It is crazy to think that once 60 million buffalo roamed the plains of North America before they were practically hunted to extinction by the white settlers that first came to Canada. We also discovered that it was Europeans who introduced the Indians to horses, which I never realised.

Having finished up our visit, we continued along Route 22, which was very picturesque, driving across the plains, some of which was on a dirt road which made for some interesting driving. Oh well, it’s a hire car!


The joys of travelling down empty roads - you can chuck a U-turn to get a great photograph of the car and nobody cares!


We saw loads of wind farms along the route - the prairies are the perfect place as there's so much space and no trees. It would be interesting to know how much power they can generate, per turbine.


A typical shot of the farmland we were travelling through. Cows, cows and more cows.

We camped in a place called Cochrane overnight in a huge RV park – a complete change from our previous two nights in a secluded woodland area. We were surrounded by mahoosive white vehicles that resemble houses on wheels with names like ‘the intruder.’ I can see why RVs have such a reputation now. As we'd eaten 'in' as it were, using the stove since the start of our trip, we decided to treat ourselves and went for dinner at Canyon Rose Steakhouse - a traditional saloon.

BEST STEAK EVER. We have to say it was one of the best meals we've eaten in Canada. If you're ever in Cochrane, go there. You won't regret it.