An early start with a Tim Horton's breakfast, then on to the station for an 8am departure. Our present of 2 bananas clearly went down well as the rest of 'Comfort' class turned green with envy when Tracy delivered us a spare breakfast from the more upmarket carriage behind us. More bear sightings (supposedly) although Gemma saw bear footprints if that counts. We went over some pretty amazing bridges. Ridiculously high and just as scarily ridiculously old. Good photo opportunities though. Finally we arrive in Prince Rupert on the Pacific coast shortly after 8pm. Again we have no accommoda [View Full Entry]

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Hopefully we're not giving the impression that we dislike the train in any way. It may be relentless, but it's excellent fun. Such a strange feeling having an almost infinite amount of time for reading, talking, sleeping and staring out of the window. So today we leave Jasper at lunchtime and have the highlight of this train journey - winding our way through the Rockies through quite amazing valleys. Plenty of snow around, although sadly no bears (at least, we missed them all). Several times throughout the day we hear an urgent PA announcement saying that the driver has spotted a [View Full Entry]

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We visit Edmonton briefly and think of Jo. The scenery improves today as we reach the foothills of the Rockies, finishing up in Jasper. It really is quite mind-boggling some of the views that we are getting from the train and the scale of everything. Our suggestion to Canadian Tourist Board is to chop down trees alongside the railway line as they often obscure otherwise perfect views. Besides they have about a zillion spare trees in Canada. We get to Jasper and are told to meet at the totem pole to catch the hostel's shuttle bus service. Hard to decide [View Full Entry]

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We wake up on the train. Spend most of the day on the train. Go to bed on the train. We did have an hour or so in Winnipeg which was very welcome. We went and bought some food for the journey, something that with hindsight we should probably have done more of at the beginning. Other highlights were an amazing sunrise viewed by Gemma whilst Ed slept, and passing the alleged geographic centre of Canada to punctuate the otherwise endless rolling prairie. It was also pleasant to realise just how well pistachio nuts go with beer. One theory to emerge [View Full Entry]

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An early and rainy start sees us walking from our hostel to Union Street train station. We take loads of photos of the oversized engines. An even pulling match would see one of these engines against about 20 of Southern Trains' best efforts. And our train this morning has 3 engines. Hard to know what to write about this kind of a day. Basically we spend all of it on board, apart from 'cigarette breaks' every 10 hours or so. It's comfortable with plenty of leg room, and the food they serve is surprisingly good. Proper meals in a kind [View Full Entry]

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So our travels and our travel blog finally get underway. It's been a long time in the planning and is a little surreal now that we're actually getting around to it. It has suddenly crept up on us as our attention has been distracted recently by minor matters like moving house and getting married. We'll start off with the intention of keeping a reasonably detailed log of our year away, but no doubt this will change. Day 1 sees a moderately tearful 'Goodbye' to parents at our hotel in London and then a train journey to Manchester. A stuttering start to [View Full Entry]

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