Canada’s Jurassic park

The dinosaur fossil beds of the Canadian Badlands are so rich you'll find yourself stumbling over giant reptilian bones as you explore them, says Alexandra Ferguson in the Daily Telegraph. They lie to the east of Calgary, in the valley of the Red Deer River, an awesome, arid landscape of "tortured peaks and crags" carved out by glacial meltwater after the last Ice Age. The Dinosaur Provincial Park was established here in 1955, and it is possible to trek to the excavated bone beds with a guide. Under protective canopies, complete skeletons can be seen emerging from the earth, "coiled in death", while the best of past discoveries are on display at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in nearby Drumheller.

Air Canada (0871 220 1111) flies from Heathrow to Calgary from £525, incl. taxes ·