Three days on the VIA rail 'Orient Express'

Wednesday 14 September – Jasper-Toronto #1

This morning we both woke without an alarm as early as ever but it was nice just to wake up by the lake at our own pace. Coffee and cereal in the room then the job of re-sorting and packing so that our big bags could be booked through to Toronto.

We then went over to the main lodge and treated ourselves to a latte. Elaine then went on the 3 km walk around the lake while I went back to the cabin to download photos and charge cameras.

Once we had our bags ready we rang for them to be taken to the lobby. The little buggy came and the man gave us a ride as well. We checked out and spent a little time enjoying the ambiance of the huge fireplace and all the large comfy wing lounge chairs in a huge room of stone with wood panelling. Jeanette and Graham arrived with their bags and we ordered a taxi to take us to the station to check in our bags and collect our tickets. We were then free to wander the small town of Jasper.

 

We had seniors lunches at Smitty's. It was delicious and just the right size.

After we had browsed through town we sat on the railway platform and watched the trains and people for the rest of the afternoon. One freight train had 116 trucks and 2 diesel locos. All the trains are extremely long.

Boarding the VIA Rail train was at 5:30 even though the train had been in since 3 pm. The cleaned the train inside and out and I guess had deliveries of food and linen.

We inspected our cabins (Jeanette and Graham are in the next door cabin!) then headed to the Activities Car for the Welcome champagne and hors d’oeuvres. 

Then into the Dining Car for dinner. I had savoury crepes and they were delicious.

We then sat in the Observation Dome to watch for wildlife and enjoy the sunset. The scenery changed to more clearings amongst the trees, less mountains, but still the fabulous “Christmas trees”.

While we were at dinner our carriage assistant Jessica prepared our beds. Once we returned to our cabin we had no space to do anything except take it in turns to change and get into bed where I wrote up my diary and we both read for a while before turning off the lights.

 

Thursday 15 September – Jasper-Toronto #2

Overnight on the train was relatively good. I slept most of the night in the top bunk but Elaine did not sleep well. She was in the bottom bunk. The room is extremely squishy whereas Jeanette and Graham's next door is, by comparison, palatial. however, we do not seem to be spending much time in the cabin.

We spent the day in the Activities Car playing Take Two, writing diaries, typing diaries, labelling and editing photos, or in one of the Observation Domes. There was a game of Bingo (I won a bookmark) and a talk about Winnipeg a few hours before we were to arrive there. The staff changes at Winnipeg and the train is cleaned again so we'll be there for about 3 hours.

 

The scenery has changed from flat prairies when we woke then to more rolling farmland in the afternoon. Apparently they have had a dry summer but there is water everywhere and the rivers we've seen today have been quite fast running.

There have been many times today that I have really missed having Surrey here. All this farmland that he would have enjoyed seeing. Every now and then I take a photo of some farm thing thinking I'll ask him about that when I get back. I guess I'll just have to remain ignorant or find out for myself. I miss him too for just being with. He would have loved this trip.

The meals continue to be fantastic. I just love the times we don't have to find food especially as always seem to have to find it ourselves in really expensive places. One coach driver explained that Banff actually stood for Be Aware Nothing For Free. And how!

One of our servers at dinner gets his guitar and serenades us. He is really quite good – just two or three songs.

 

As we pulled into Winnipeg the moon rose over the city large (just past full) and red (from the stubble burning still done by some farmers in the area). The Winnipeg was actually longer than 3 hours but I was asleep by the time we pulled out.

Friday 16 September – Jasper-Toronto #3

We woke close to 7 am today to more trees, lakes, a frost, and fog on the water. Quite beautiful, in fact, watching out over the scenery at breakfast with the autumn colours just beginning to show. We had both slept well too.

We've now seen a few beaver lodges but no beavers yet. I saw a fleeting glance of a moose by a lake just nearing Armstrong.

We are now in the Eastern time zone which we will be on for the next few weeks. No more time changes for a while.

We stayed in trees-woodlands-wetlands-lakes type scenery for the whole day with the speeding trees beside the railway prohibiting most photography.

We were entertained before dinner with another game of Bingo and a few games of Take Two and after dinner we watched the movie “Because I said so” - a great chic flick which Graham left early to go to bed.

A quick fix of our broken chair in our cabin.

Vancouver to Jasper

Thursday 8 September – Vancouver Island

Scratch breakfast today of muesli bars, coffee and raspberries. Then we were down at the lobby hoping that the tour we were booked on would meet there. All seemed very vague! Eventually the Cambie St, and along roads we'd travelled before, to the BC Ferry terminal (http://www.bcferries.com/ ) at Tsawwassen.

Out for coffee while we waited for the ferry but we were the first bus on. The ferry ride was very reminiscent of the Hawkesbury but wider and with evergreen woodlands,

When we landed on the other side we drove down to Butchart Gardens (http://www.butchartgardens.com ) for a 1.5 hour wander. It was truly beautiful! I am not really into gardens but it had some beautiful spots. We had scratch lunch in a lovely shady damp spot under huge evergreens. The gift shop was fabulous and I bought another scarf and an interesting window vase for a few gifts and for me.

The bus then took us on to Victoria where we had another 1.5 hours to wander. I visited the Bug Museum and saw 7” millipedes, tarantula spiders, a huge ant condominium, giant cockroaches and a variety of stick insects relatives. After a wander around the waterfront I sat in the shade. We were lucky that we heard the carillon play before we left.

A drive back to the ferry. As soon as we were aboard Elaine and I headed for the buffet dinner option. We could eat as much as we wanted (which of course is about 1/8^th the amount of most people here) and enjoyed mains and dessert.

Once we got back to our hotel we checked out and checked the place and time for tomorrow's transfer which turned out to be completely wrong anyway.

Friday 9 September – Vancouver-Kamloops

Today we left Vancouver on the first leg of our Rocky Mountaineer holiday. After a disturbed night it was a 5:30 am alarm call. Instructions had been different from every source about where we should meet and what to do about luggage. With a bit of wandering trying to sort it while I left Elaine minding the luggage we eventually found our bus and loaded on hoping all would be well in the end.

We boarded the train at about 8:30 and had a slow trip out along the south side of the Fraser River covering ground we had already travelled over for the first 50 km or so to Fort Langley. After that all was new ground.

As we were the second sitting for breakfast we didn't get it till about 10 am so it was lucky that we'd both had scratch breakfast before leaving the hotel.

The scenery for the first half of the trip was magnificent, majestic, fantastic …?!? We travelled through the Fraser River Gorge then along the Thompson River with the river, train track each side, and highway all using the same gorge at different levels. It was first a mix of deciduous and evergreen then all evergreen forest as we got higher. I saw a bald eagle, some black-tailed deer and later 2 bighorn sheep. The white water rafters were spectacular to watch on the Thompson. During the second half of the day the scenery was a much more open low scrub covery the steep hillsides. Quite a desert between the Coast Ranges and the Rocky Mountains in BC. The temperature got up to 36 C during the day today.

A rock fall bridge

Our train

Mumma bear and three cubs - taken by a fellow traveller.

While we were on the train news came through of a Richter 6 earthquake off Vancouver. Luckily we had missed it! Buildings in Vancouver shook but no real damage.

Taking photos was quite funny. It was difficult to click just at the right time to avoid trees and telegraph poles as they wizzed across the view. The whole carriage eventually started working together to look for the views and breaks.

The meals on the train are so fabulous that by the time we arrived in Kamloops Elaine and I were so full that we just had some of our cheese and bickies and ½ an apple each for dinner.

Once in our motel in Kamloops I had a Google chat with Geoff and a virtual tour of my garden then we both cleared up a few email tasks before heading out for a walk. Then it was showers and diary, dinner and bed ready for another 5:30 am alarm tomorrow.

My back-leg-hip is much better today.

Saturday 10 September – Kamloops-Banff

Left the motel at about 6:30 am and onto the train earlier than yesterday. Today we are the last carriage so have a great view out the back from an open air balcony. We enjoyed the first sitting at breakfast today and I really was ready for it.

After breakfast we started climbing again past some large lakes leaving the dry lands behind and heading into more forested mountains.

 

The staff on the train are really helpful and give us both official and personal bits of information. We are fed and watered (coffeed) continuously with delicious food.

Late in the morning we passed Shuswap Lake – 60 Km long. It is used for recreation but it also had a plywood factory where the logs arrive floating down from higher up the river. We also saw this in Vancouver itself. I saw a Bald Eagle at the end of Shuswap Lake.

The mountains, lakes and rivers are magnificent. The milkiness of the water is quite unusual. We went through two spiral tunnels and saw some fantastic engineering feats to bring people across the Rockies.

As we were coming into Banff we saw elk in the water but apart from that we saw very little wildlife during the day. Others saw a bear with cubs and a young moose but we were on the wrong side.

A short bus ride from the station delivered us to the Banff Springs Hotel, a fantastic castle like building from the 1920s.

Hotel in Banff was surrounded by beautiful gardens.

Elaine admiring the violets

On going up to our room we found we were to share a king-sized bed so I went back down to reception to explain that this was not on! They claimed we had been upgraded to a delux room (albeit looking out over the roof and fire escape) but if we really did not want to share a bed we could have an extra single bed (called a cot!) delivered to our room. I accepted this suggestion and it was soon done.

We then looked at prices for dinner and breakfast and decided to walk to town and buy supplies instead. Yoghurt and cereal for breakfast and we'll eat it with the forks from Delia.

Back to the hotel to find we had to pay for internet unless we joined the President Club (free) so Elaine went back down and did this so we could check emails etc.

Then there was the washing we had accumulated. As we are here for two nights we can hang it to dry so by the time we finished all the towels were saturated and the place looked like a Chinese laundry. Thanks to Karen G. for here twisty washing line.

Eventually we both collapsed into bed a little peeved but with all our problems solved.

Sunday 11 September – Banff

This morning we did not have to meet our tour coach till about 10 am so there was plenty of time for our breakfast, sorting and downloading and backing up of all our photos.

Our tour took us to the helicopter pad east of town on an Indian casino resort called Stoney Nakoda. Elaine and I opted out of the helicopter ride when we were booking the trip so took the opportunity to look around at the displays and shop at the resort and also to have coffee and biscuits at the helicopter flight centre while the others mostly had a flight. Many of them were not overly impressed by their 12 minute flight.

The tour then wound its way back to Banff via the circuitous route passed all resorts of views and sights like Cascade Mt, Sleeping Buffalo Mt and Two Jack Lake. We were dropped in Banff to have lunch so we joined Jeanette and Graham from Dongara south of Geraldton in WA. We went to Coyotes. Although we did not have enough time to eat the food was great and Elaine and I took our remaining sandwich back to the bus to finish.

The tour then continued via Bow Falls and Surprise Corner and back to the gondola ride which gave us superb views of the mountains and valleys. I also enjoyed watching a few little Golden Shouldered Squirrels (?) enjoying the sunshine. I need a better camera to be able to get closer photos of animals. Elaine's Canon and Jeanette's Olympus both do it fabulously.

The coach driver then dropped us at town where we four went to the food court in the mall to find dinner. We decided Edo's Japanese was best because the food was cooked freshly in front of us. It was great. Then a bit more shopping for supplies at Safeway. On the way home Elaine and I called into the Indian Trading Post following the recommendation of the coach driver. It was a fabulous shop kept in its original style from the early 1900s with hosts of Indian artefacts, gifts and stuff but the best part was all the stuffed animals, birds and heads mounted high around the walls. There had been a taxidermist working as part of the business a century ago and these were all from that time. The shop is still owned and run by the descendents of the original family.

Back to the hotel to sort ready to have our bags collected at 8 am tomorrow.

A most amusing thing about Elaine and I sharing a room is that when we are sorting we both wander around each other completely absorbed in what we are doing and talking to ourselves continuously. It fis so hilarious when we both realise and end up having a good laugh.

Monday 12 September – Banff-Lake Louise

After breakfast our bags were collected and we slowly made our way down to the bus by taking a short tour of the hotel and grounds.

The bus arrived, the bags were delivered and the bust driver asked us all to identify our bags – no labels for destination! However, for some reason he chose to ignore the fact that I had identified ours as had Elaine separately and when he was about to go someone saw their bags still on the ground so we all had to get back out and check if ours were there too (which in our case they were). Elaine then stood there until she saw him load them on. You may well ask “why weren't the bags tagged for destination?” We did wonder at the system.

An animal crossing bridge

Some people take everything including the kitchen sink!

Eventually we set off to see the Spiral Tunnels that we went through on the train and the beautiful Emerald Lake in Yoho National Park. 

We then went in to Lake Louise resort. As our room was not ready Jeanette and Graham suggested we leave our stuff in their room until ours was ready. Wow! The sight on opening their door was stunning. A view over Lake Louise and Victoria Glacier from the 8^th floor (tip) in centre front.

The view of Lake Louise from Jeanette and Graham's room.

We stayed there admiring the room and view for a bit then all walked around the lake, Jeanette and Elaine striding off ahead while Graham and I with our walking sticks took our time enjoying a long chat. The walk was about 2 hours long and at the far end there were some rock climbers and also some chipmunks.

Graham and Betty, the two old crocks.

Back to our rooms to catch up with emails etc. and just collapse a bit. Our room was on the 7^th floor at the far end of the complex but we also had a fantastic view of the lake and glacier.

We arranged to meet up at the Lakeside Lounge and were given a table centre front with the same view as Jeanette and Graham's as the sun set. The changing colours on the scene with the fading light was mesmerising. Dinner was great, not too big, with wine, butter chicken, and I had crème caramel for dessert.

We then browsed the shops and went out for even more views of the sunset colours. When we returned to our room I had a bath to help rehydration then we both collapsed into bed.

What a magnificent place this is. It even has a deli where you can get sandwiches and coffee at a reasonable price so you don't feel that you need to walk to town which is quite a way.

Tuesday 13 September – Lake Louise-Jasper

What a joy to wake up to that view over Lake Louise! We packed and breakfasted on cereal with juice. A coffee in the room then we took the chance of leaving our bags in our room to be collected and went down for a wander.

Elaine went on a longer walk with Jeanette while Graham took a stroll. He eventually found me waiting for the coach. I woke feeling seedy with the beginnings of a cold so was happy to sit. This morning's system for baggage was much smoother but we'll see what happens at the other end before passing final judgement.

Our coach took us on a sightseeing tour between Lake Louise and Jasper on the Icefields Parkway.

We stopped at the Crowfoot Glacier, Bow Lake, Peyto Lake and Snowbird Glacier before reaching the Columbia Icefield by lunch time. A quick lunch was followed by two shuttle rides onto the large glacier where we were able to walk around for a short while before returning to our coach. We saw three Mountain Goats on the hillside way above the coach. On then for a short stop at the Athabasca Falls. They were fantastic. Really quite short but extremely powerful.

Betty and Elaine on the Athabasca Glacier.

We actually saw four bighorn sheep today just by the roadside.

On through Jasper then to the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge were we were allocated our cabin. Quite magnificent in its outlook over the lake. Our luggage was delivered safely and we met Jeanette and Graham for dinner at the only dining room available – the Emerald Lounge. Elaine and I shared a salad with chicken and it was delicious.

Our cabin in Jasper.

Having sorted our next move for tomorrow we returned to our cabin to wind down and sort and for me to nurse my cold coming on. Thank goodness I remembered my cold remedy medication.

Today has been our first cold day but even so I only had to wear a vest and windcheater in case it was too cold on the icefield. On the glacier it was 10 C but earlier in the morning it was 4 C. Jasper was 21 C when we got there but quickly cooled down.

Two More Days in Vancouver

Tuesday 6 September

Woke a bit stiff and sore close to 8 am. After breakfast and a load of washing, Delia and John took us to experience Costco where we bought salads for a picnic lunch and some cheeses for us to take tomorrow for the scratch meals we will need.

We then headed to Lynn Headwaters Park but that was apparently not the intended destination so with a bit of backtracking we eventually found the Lynn Canyon Park (http://lynncanyon.ca/ ).

We parked then went on our walk across the suspension bridge then followed the river up to the lovely deep and probably icy cold pool. After we returned we enjoyed our salads for lunch at a picnic table in a beautifully shady cedar and fir forest.

Then a visit to the ecology centre where there were fantastic displays of the ecology of evergreen woodlands and some of the effects of development on these areas. We then headed to the Mt Seymore ski area (no snow) (http://www.mountseymour.com/home ) and enjoyed beautiful views across to Mt Baker. We were able to identify a lot of the landmarks in the greater Vancouver area.

The drive home was long and hot and the air was very still after the cool of the mountains.

Home again to sit on the deck in a slight breeze to enjoy some fresh figs, cake, candied salmon and a coffee to regain our sanity. We had chicken and salad for dinner and sat up downloading photos, watching TV and just chatting.

Wednesday 7 September

Still a bit stiff and sore this morning but I was up at about 6:30am. Watched the Chikadees (birds) on the apple trees for a while then started typing up my diary before picking blackberries for breakfast with our cereal.

Once we were packed Delia and John drove us to the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver where we are to stay as part of our Rocky Mountains tour. The room was ready so we were in by about 11am. We settled then went food shopping at the Urban Fare (http://urbanfare.com/ ) supermarket nearby. Wow! What a classy place. We came back and had cheese, salad and crackers for lunch then I began typing up my diary again while Elaine (who doesn't like to stay still for long) went for a few walks. We also spent time sorting our bags for the next few days.

At about 3 pm we headed out to look at Gastown. Unfortunately we were one street away and only found derros and drug addicts so quickly made our way down to where we saw hanging baskets of flowers. That was better – tourist shops, the steam clock that actually chimed for us, had an ice cream that wasn't very nice then made our way slowly back to the Vancouver Lookout (http://www.vancouverlookout.com/ ) to meet Karinya. We went up the glass lift to the top and all spent a little time discussing places we'd been and things we'd enjoyed while looking at the fabulous views in all directions.

 We wandered along the waterfront but as I had begun to wilt badly we headed towards the hotel for dinner. On the way Karinya saw a Cactus Club Cafe (http://www.cactusclubcafe.com/ ) and said she'd always wanted to go there so we went there instead. It was a fabulous meal – chicken Caesar salad and fish tacos shared between us. We bought two meals and asked for three plates. The server even gave us three fish tacos instead of the normal two so we could split the dish easily.

After dinner I perked up a lot so we took Karinya back to the hotel to show her our room and share some of our raspberries for dessert.

A bit of washing and sorting after Karinya left then of to bed soon after 9 pm.

Earthquake in Vancouver

There was an earthquake off Vancouver Island yesterday (Richter 6 we heard). We were on the train so did not feel anything. Karinya all OK, did not feel anything.

My back is now recovering.