Day 9 - Castle Butte, then Bengough, SK to Swift Current, SK

Today we are going to Castle Butte!

We are now closer to Montana than we are to Regina!

We packed a lunch and started out for Castle Butte, a formation made of clay, coal and limestone dating from the ice age. Once we get just a bit south of Bengough the landscape changed to what you would expect in an old western movie in the days of Indians, outlaws and early settlers all trying to live in the same area of hills and valleys. Highway 13 is called the Red Coat trail after the early RCMP officers who tried to bring law and order.

We drove onto a private road, it turned out that there is a whole web of these roads, all unpaved, but in fairly good condition, winding around this back country. Few farms, and they are all spread miles apart. For all the oddness of the landscape, it is apparently fertile - there are lots of fat cattle munching away, all free range, just some gates (left open but with a cattle gate of a series of railway tracks set over a ditch).

The 'castle' is a formation shaped like a castle that can be seen for miles, and was a landmark in the early days. We were hoping to actually climb it, but the surface is crumbly and we didn't want to cause any more damage. Heavy rains have caused parts of it to slide. But I climbed a bit of it, and we walked all the way around. Very interesting, but in actual fact, not worth the 4-1/2 hour drive to get there.

We then followed the dirt road for a ways until it began to become a network of roads and we had no idea where they would go, so we retraced our route and decided to go back to the campground, hitch up the trailer and see how far we would get today.

We decided on Swift Current (further than Moose Jaw, but not as far as Calgary) because there was a park there with Wifi to update the blog (now I can add pictures!), 30 amp power (so we could put on the air conditioning - it is hot!), a laundromat so we could replenish our wardrobes, and Mike would be allowed to wash our truck! There were so many moths washed off into a large enough pile that it attracted a horde of flies!