Time to Detrain

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Another early start for the second day of the epic train trip. We needed to be ready outside the hotel at 6:15 and we were. The bus was on time, but apparently the train had some congestion getting out of the rail yard so our friendly driver Norm took us for a small tour of Kamloops while we waited for the train.

Once Norm got the call that everything was ready, we headed down to the station and boarded the train. Without further delay, we departed. Breakfast was quickly served, and although it wasn’t as nice as the first day, it was still pretty good. Oddly, the cheese omelette was accompanied by vegetables such as zucchini which I don’t normally have for breakfast.

There’s not a whole lot to talk about for the trip – the photos can speak for themselves. We encountered some rain in the morning, but thankfully it soon cleared because it ruined the photos more than the reflections had so far done.

Today we entered the Rocky Mountains proper and saw the scenery you expect to see on such a trip. Being summer, there was not a lot of snow on the mountain tops, but there was some. Mostly the mountains lived up to their names and just had rocky peaks.

For lunch on the second day, I found the main to be better than the first day, but I didn’t care for the salad this time. The main was chicken stuffed with cheese, tomato and basil and was as nice as it sounds. Desert was a chocolate/coffee stuffed crepe which was pretty nice even though I dislike coffee.

Apparently we had a pretty good run so by the time we entered the Rocky Mountains and moved our clocks forward an hour, we were back on schedule. The last stage features two “spiral” tunnels which, despite the name, don’t actually spiral up the mountain. They do, however, turn about ¾ of a circle to allow the train to climb the mountain at a reasonable gradient.

We soon reached the continental divide where water on one side flows to the Pacific and water on the other side flows to the Atlantic Ocean or the Great Lakes (I think. In the USA it’s the Atlantic or the Gulf of Mexico, depending on the river). From that point it was all downhill into Banff.

Oh, as a side-note, I beat yesterday’s photo total and hit 570 giving me over 1000 photos for just two days. While that is a lot, keep in mind that photography from a moving train is not easy so there are quite a number of close-up photos of trees, poles and other unintended subjects. There were still many good photos though, and selecting a handful to show here on the blog was difficult.

Thus ended the great train trip over the Rocky Mountains. All in all it was a fantastic journey and well worth doing if you ever get the chance. The staff were excellent – very knowledgeable, friendly and efficient. You really couldn’t ask any more of them considering they had to prepare and serve meals, while being tour guides. I went in the Silver Leaf class, which is a new service nestled between Gold and Red Leaf services. I can’t compare Silver Leaf to the others, obviously, but I was satisfied with the money it cost.

Once in Banff I caught a taxi to my hotel. It’s a pretty small place by the looks of things. My taxi driver said I’d feel right at home because the place is full of Aussies – particularly in the winter. The receptionist at the hotel was Australian, and it was a really nice room. From the balcony I could see two different mountain peaks.

I didn’t have much time to do anything as it was 8:00pm by the time I got to the hotel. I quickly changed and headed out to get something to eat. I ate at an Irish pub and washed my burger down with a Kilkenny Cream Ale. I haven’t had a Kilkenny in a while, and it was quite nice. I then returned to the hotel and went to sleep, glad that I finally could sleep in a bit!

In the morning I went to check my email, only to discover that for some reason the wireless on my laptop had stopped working. It had worked the night before, but now it was as if the laptop had never even heard of wireless technology. So after a quick breakfast in the hotel, my first stop was a computer shop to by a usb wireless adaptor.

With that problem solved, I spent the rest of the time I had in Banff looking around and taking photos. It’s a lovely town with just awesome backdrops. I visited the Banff Park Museum which was opened in the early 20th century so that the well-to-do tourists of the day could see the local wildlife without actually leaving civilisation. It is full of stuffed animals and is set out today just as it was back then.

I then had to head back to the hotel to pick up my bags, before heading to the bus station to catch a bus to Calgary. Apparently their system had me booked in for the 10:00am bus, but it wasn’t a problem because the bus wasn’t even close to being full. In fact, after dropping most passengers off at the airport, the bus driver dropped the rest of us at our hotels!

Again, it’s a very nice hotel, this time in the centre of Calgary. It was my plan to do nothing but get the blog up to date, but when I was browsing the pamphlets in the lobby I came across one for the supposed “World’s Largest Games Store”. So I decided to go and check it out. It’s a 30 minute or so walk from the hotel, but it’s flat and I’d been doing enough sitting lately that I was glad to do it. I honestly have no idea if it is the world’s largest, but it was pretty big. Unfortunately, it didn’t have a huge range of stuff for the games I play so all I did was look around before picking up a new set of dice.

I then walked back to the hotel and got to work. Going through the photos and getting the blog up has taken 4 hours by my reckoning. I decided to go for room service so that I could get it all done. It’s almost 11pm so I will end it here. The airport shuttle picks me up at 4:50am…

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Photos

Shuswap Lake
Pronounced "Shoe swap"

Still Shuswap Lake
It's a big lake

First snow sighted
From Revelstoke

Who's this joker?
Yes, it's me. Proof that I was really there!

Once were avalanches
You can see where the avalanche was

Stone bridge
Although this photo doesn't show it, there's a waterfall underneath the bridge

Road bridge
The highway was a regular companion to the rail line

Comments

[Sean]

Great pics mate, a very detailed blog right down to the veges, great reading, liked the comment in the first blog about bag pipes, I would have loved it.

[Dad]

Looks good.
Great - I know it takes a shedfull of time to do but it is really well worth doing - at least from our point of view. Gets hard though as the days where on I guess.