Rocky Mountaineer Train

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We have had an amazing two days on the Rocky Mountaineer Train. We had a early start 5.15am on Thursday 15 May. We were met by our tour guide John House and taken to our train. Our luggage was sent ahead by truck and was sitting in our room when we arrived at Kamloops and Banff.
The first day we travelled to Kamloops; the name Kamloops drives from the Shuswap Indian word "T"Kemlups" meaning meeting of the waters - it refers to the junction of the North and South Thompson Rivers. We travel through an amazing gorge for 260km the sky was blue, our fellow travellers were great fun and the food on the train was great. In our carriage there was to bus loads so we got to meet another 45 people too.
On Friday we got to sleep in a little to 5.30am and boarded our train again with the same group, which were a little roudier. What a day we had, travelling right into the Rockies, huge magestic mountains, snow still on the ground, frozen lakes and water falls and according to our guide one of the best days he has seen in the 8 years he has been a tour guide. We saw 4 bears, 1 mooose, numerous elk, 1 wolf, 2 deer. They had a code that the front of the train was 12 oclock and the warning calls were around the clock, so it worked really well and we all got to see the wild life.
We had a little hiccup on the way though when we were travelling through the spiral tunnels, the lights changed to red. The train came to a stop, we waited for more than 1 hour. In the end the engineers went ahead to check the track, they found that the sudden change in temperature had warped the track slightly, there was much discussion about whether we could proceed. In the end we did slowly.
We are now at the Fairmont Banff Springs (a huge castle hotel on the hill above Banff) one of the most famous picture postcard hotels in the Rockies.

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