I’m on the flight back. The last day in Calgary was spent having a lie-in and shopping for supplies for the journey home so I haven’t got a lot to say really. I certainly don’t want to come home. There was a flight to Las Vegas that was leaving Calgary shortly before mine. I wanted to get on that. I’ve just about got used to the Canadian money (loonies, quarters, dimes, nickels, etc.), the traffic coming in the wrong direction, going to the bathroom instead of the toilet (even though there’s no bath) and I’ve even got used to tipping every man and his dog for doing the job that they’re already being paid for. That was difficult though - I’m a tight fisted Yorkshireman, as you know.

It’s been a really enjoyable trip overall. I’ve especially enjoyed traveling through The Rockies - I’ve never seen a landscape like it before. It’s up there with the Scottish Highlands and the south west of Ireland in terms of beauty. If it were a little greener it would have been unbeatable.

I may have to go back to Canada one day. But go east next time. Might even go to Quebec. I’m told it’s very nice - not as bad as France, even though they speak French. Although I was told that by a girl from Montreal.

I’ll have to go back to Australia first though. That’s more important.

After sitting on an old and rather cramped Greyhound coach for an hour and a half I arrived in Banff at 08:50 this morning. And it was a beautiful morning.

Banff is situated in the Bow River Valley, surrounded by snow capped mountains on all sides. It's a bit bigger than Jasper and a lot more commercialised. Jasper is still dominated by its railway - The Canadian National. Banff was pretty much built because of its railway -The Canadian Pacific. Indeed, there's a massive and extremely grand looking hotel on the edge of the town that built by the railway specifically to bring visitors and their money to the area. These days Banff doesn't have a proper (VIA Rail) passenger service, only a summer only tourist train called The Rocky Mountaineer. Freight trains regularly pass through, without stopping.

Having gone on a fifteen minute detour round some pretty extensive road works to cross the main road in the centre of Banff and reach the tourist information office I came out armed with maps and lists of things to do and tourist traps to avoid for the day.

I started off by taking the cable car up to the top of one of the montains, then visited the hot springs, walked along the river to a viewing point, sat in the park and enjoyed a 'Peanut Budder and Chocolate' ice cream (in a chocolate cone) and stolled up to the extremely picturesque Bow Falls. I'm just going to let the photos tell you what all that was like.





My flight home leaves Calgary at 18:40MT tomorrow and I'll be back in London at 10:30BST on Sunday so I'll have another day in Calgary. Which reminds me. We haven't had a picture of Calgary yet...

I arrived in Calgary from from Vancouver around mid-afternoon yesterday with a splitting head ache. I was in no mood for trying to work out a new public transport system so I took a taxi to the hotel, dropped off my bags and went and had lunch at a sandwich shop around the corner. When check-in time came I went back to the hotel had a cup of coffee (I've given up trying to make tea with a coffee maker) and crashed out.

This morning, feeling much better, I went and explored Calgary. And It's a decent city. Not what I thought though. The old Olympic park is someway out of town and, at this time of year, there's not to much to do.

The city centre's quite nice - much like Toronto's and Vancouver's (and Winnipeg's from what I saw of it) - lots of sky scrapers, a river, park and a revolving restaurant on a stick that looks a bit like the CN Tower.

Thinking about what to do tomorrow - my last day in Canada - I contemplated going to the Calgary Zoo, which is supposed to be pretty big, or rearranging my flights and going back to Toronto, but I decided to go back to The Rockies for the day, since they're just on the Horizon and I enjoyed Jasper so much. So I went down to the Greyhound station and bought a return ticket for the 07:15am bus to Banff.

That's the plan.

I was out the hotel at 6:30 yesterday heading downtown to catch the 7:30 bus to Victoria. It leaves from the central station, drives you onto the BC Ferries service from Tsawwassen, to Swartz Bay on Vancouver Island and then off to Victoria. Quite a efficient service I thought. And the ferry journey was extremely scenic as it weaved its way through the islands.


They say Victoria is a popular destination with tourists, especially Americans (I suspect its proximity to Seattle has something to do with that), because of its British look and feel. I suppose it does look more British compared to other Canadian cities. The grand, historical looking buildings around the harbor certainly wouldn't look out of place on the banks of The Thames or, indeed, around Queen Vic. square in Hull. I think the constant stream of sea planes landing in the Marina gave the game away though. Never seen that in Britain. And I do draw the line at the lone piper playing under the totem poles. He might have been more convincing had he been playing Scotland the Brave in tune.


The plan in Victoria was to try a spot of whale watching. This didn't work out. I missed the sailing I'd planned to get on and the next was on a tiny 'Zodiac' boat, which I didn't fancy spending three seconds on let alone three hours.

No matter. Victoria was a nice place to be. I strolled around the harbor, looked in a junk (souvenir) shop, watched a group of shopping centre staff try to clear up a large pile of shattered glass from a broken window and then I came across the Royal BC Museum (BC being British Columbia). It was $25 admission and after my rather disappointing visit to the Royal Ontario Museum last week I was quite quite apprehensive about paying that.

Well, It was probably the best $25 I spent on this trip. It was a wonderful museum, on which someone has plainly spent a hell of a lot of money. There was an entire floor dedicated to the history of the provence from the late 1800s right to the end of The 20th Century. Each decade had its own gallery which was decorated in period style and contained electronic newspaper archives for the decade, information of the major events and lifestyle of the decade and a cabinets full of day to day clothing and artifacts used during the period. After you'd got through that the rest of the floor was a complete reconstruction of what life was like in Victoria in the early 1900s. It was amazingly well done. It had reconstructed streets, hotels, shops, alley ways, ships, saw mills, fisheries, houses, stations and more. I was fascinated, wondering round exploring every nook and cranny.

There was also a special exhibition about The Titanic. It was just as compelling. Before I entered the gallery I was handed a boarding card, which contained the name and details of one of the passengers (everyone would get a different person), the idea being as I went round the exhibition I followed the life of that passenger and then found out whether they survived or drowned at the end. I was a Mr. Leonard Mark Hickman, a 24 year old traveling from West Hampstead, London to Neepawa, Manitoba, Canada in second class.

I as I entered I was approached by a member of staff dressed in full White Star Line officers uniform and, in an assumed English accent that was considerably more convincing that my own, asked for my boarding card. "Ah, Mr. Hickman", he said. "I'm sorry to inform you that as you're traveling second class, due to your position on the ship, you stand considerably less chance of surviving than had you been traveling third." I remarked something articulate like "Excellent!" or "Great!" in return. "Very good, sir", he said as he moved on.

The exhibition took you on a tour of the journey from boarding to sinking. It had mock-ups of passenger accommodation, dining rooms and the all important ice berg (which really was made of ice). All the way through there were examples of real artifacts salvaged from the wreck (including, would you believe it, some paper documents that were still readable). Staff were dressed in costume (as maids, officers, engineers, etc.) throughout.

I learned a bit too... I'd always thought that the sealed sections that were supposed to make the Titanic unsinkable hadn't worked, which is why it sunk. Infact they did work. It was designed so that if four compartments were flooded it would remain afloat. However, the iceberg cut into six of the compartments which made the sinking almost certain. The split in two then, of course, sealed its fate.

Leonard Hickman did not survive.

I got to Vancouver four hours late and it's been pretty much constantly raining since.

After checking into my hotel I walked around a bit, getting quite comprehensively drenched ("It's that fine rain - soaks you though."), to try to get a feel for the city. And I quite like it. Despite the weather. It's got a busyness - a "this is where it all happens" buzz - like London, but it seems to retain an extremely friendly atmosphere. People here constantly seem to smile and greet you as they pass, even though much of the time I've had my head down trying to avoid the rain dripping down my face. Occasionally I've managed a grunt in reply. No one seems to bother with French much round here either... I quite like that too.

In one of the slightly brighter moments this morning I managed to get a picture of the totem poles in Stanley Park, and a hazy picture of the city's skyline:



Stanley Park looks like it could be quite a nice place but most of it is currently closed to the public. It sustained severe storm damage earlier in the year and they are still trying to clear up. The residents seem to be coping well though: I passed a family of geese (2 adults, 5 young) walking in the opposite direction on the path out of the park. They honked a polite greeting as I passed. I honked back.

Later, in a bid to avoid the rain, I visited an attraction called Science World. Far from the Open-University-with-luminous-beards-and-fake-smiles image that its name conjures up it was actually quite interesting. It's a sort of small scale Science Museum, with lots of buttons to push and levers to pull (which I did). Not sure I learned much, but it was dry.

I'm off to Victoria on Vancouver Island tomorrow. It's an early start and a late finish so I don't know whether I'll have chance to post anything until Wednesday.

Oh, and now I'm back at the hotel, the sun's come out.

Where’s Agather Christie when you need her?

Yesterday evening, while I was having a beer and a chat in my normal spot in the park car the train came to an abrupt halt in the middle of nowhere. Coming to a stop on these trains is not uncommon. This is mainly a single track railway and we’re often put in a loop while another train passes in the other direction. But this was unusually abrupt.

Looking up I saw a sudden procession of staff (the conductor, a couple of engineers, several attendants, the chef) frantically running back along the track. Brain, the park car attendant, came into the lounge asking if anyone would like another glass of champagne and an appetizer, and, perhaps as an acknowledgment that something might be happening that didn’t involve food, drink or interesting geological landmarks, left his radio on the table so people could hear what was happening:

“Which car was it?”
“113”
“The window’s completely smashed?”
“I think it was the girl in the blue pants that couldn’t settle her bill.”
“We’ve found her.”
“Careful, if she’s smashed the window and jumped out she could still have the emergency hammer. Probably unstable.”
“No, the hammer’s still on the floor in the Skyline.”
“All railroad traffic now stopped.”
“10-4”
etc...

A few minutes later the level crossing about 20 metres behind us was surrounded by several police cars (just as you see in American films) and a couple of ambulances. An engineer came into the lounge, opened the rear door and instructed the engineer in the locomotive at the front to reverse, guiding him over the radio.

When we reached the scene and stopped, several police officers boarded through the open door and swiftly moved through the lounge urging everyone to remain calm. A couple of people looked up from their books. I ordered another scotch.

The radio crackled some more:

“Yeah, is there any more ductape in the emergency box up in coach? Trying to sort out this window.”
“Err, no tape, godda duck though.”

I went to bed (which happened to be ten cars up past the scene of the crime). The police were taking statements from staff and passengers in the area as I passed.

Seems that the girl involved had been acting strangely since see boarded in Toronto and this evening, while sitting in the Skyline coach, had decided she wanted to leave the train. So the got the emergency hammer, smashed the adjacent window, told the attendant she had to get off and then jumped. She’s alive but “pretty bashed up” in the words of one of the engineers.

Next morning and we’re about four hours late. The engineers are over hours and we’ve now just been parked up in some freight sidings 80 miles from Vancouver while we await some more engineers. It’s all good though. Just had another cooked breakfast - pancakes, maple syrup, egg (over easy, apparently) and bacon.

Ah, we’ve started moving again...

...And stopped.

Jasper and the Athabasca Valley is probably the most dramatically beautiful places I've been. The mountains are tall and jagged, the trees are thick and green, the river is a georgous clean turquoise colour. Deer and Elk roam the streets.

My first day in Jasper was cloudy and drizzly. Although you could see the valley, the mountains were all shrouded under the cloud. It wasn't a letdown though. I went on a couple of walks and saw plenty of wildlife (of a herbivorous nature).





The following day it brightened up and the views all around where quite breathtaking. In the morning I walked out to a place called old fort point, which is part way up a mountain and gives a 360 degree of the whole Athabasca Valley. Later on, I took the cable car up to the top of Mount Whistler. I've got a couple of hundred photos of the views, these are some of the best:

I’ve arrived in Jasper. The weather’s not as good here as it has been in Ontario. It’s cloudy - high cloud though, so I can see all the snow capped mountain tops.

It’s an absolutely beautiful area. The town is surrounded on all sides by mountains, rivers and lakes and the view from my hotel room is pretty special (as is the hotel room actually, still comes without milk or a kettle though). There were plenty of elk and moose that I saw from the train on the way into Jasper. Didn’t see any bears though. I’ve taken plenty of photos already, but as I don’t have a fast Internet connection here I’m going to wait until I get to Vancouver on Sunday before uploading them.

The tourist information cabin is just across the road so I went in and asked the bloke there about the local attractions - “I just came in on the train, I don’t have a car and I’ve got a free day in Jasper tomorrow. What do I do?”. So I’ve been given a map and list of walking trails to follow (of various length ranging from sensible to 30km), told I’ve ”got to go to Old Fort Point - the best 360 degree look out in the park” (“right oh.”), and I’ve been given instructions on how to get the bus to the cable-car to take me to one of the peaks. Plenty to do then - as long as the weather says dry.

I’ve also been given a leaflet, to which I’ve paid very close attention, on encounters with bears. It’s full of reassuring words about how uncommon bear attacks are and then goes into copious amounts of detail on how how to avoid and encounter, deal with an encounter (talk to it(!!), back away slowly - don’t run), work out what sort of attack it is if you are attacked - defensive or predatory (as if, in such a situation, I’d give a monkeys) and instructions how to handle an attack (if it’s defensive then play dead, if it’s predatory, fight back -I don’t care for either option). And now I’m duly scared.

I’ve been on The Canadian for nine hours now and I’ve staked out a corner of the Bullet Lounge within ear shot of the bar as my own. I’ve started reading the latest Bill Bryson book - Thuderbolt Kid - and have been sat quietly sniggering away (occasionally hysterically laughing) at it for the pat hour. I’ve now managed so scare everyone away and have a whole half of the lounge to myself.

Train life’s good. We’re in our own little world - a stainless steel cocoon ambling through a beautiful landscape of rock formations, lakes and marshes regularly punctuated by birch wood beaver dams. There’s the bar, an endless supply of tea, coffee, fruit juice, muffins, danish pastries and fresh fruit (but I don’t know why I’d want that). Every four coaches there’s a Skyline Car which has a dome in the roof, which you can sit in and get a uninterrupted view of the passing landscape. Three times a day you get called for a three course meal in the restaurant. It very comfortable way to travel, if not the fastest. It’s certainly the best way to live.

There are tons of Americans on board, plenty of British, a group of Germans as well as some Aussies. Over lunch (of smoked pacific salmon and melon with green leaf and red potato salad followed by coconut brownie and cream) I even met three Canadians!

Excuse me now, I feel another drink (and a maple danish) coming on.

It was a gorgeous day at Niagara Falls, and I caught the sun a bit. I didn't really associate Canada with this sort of weather so I didn't bring any sun cream. Now I'm a little bit red around the edges. Oh, and no. I didn't have my coat with me.

The falls are spectacular.


I had planned to take a trip of The Maid of the Mist - the boat that takes you under the falls - but it wasn't running toady. Apparently it isn't the high season yet and today was really quiet. Well if it was quiet today, I'd hate to be there when it was busy.

I went for a walk through the town which is full of tasteful tourist traps like a 'house of horrors', a 180° cinemas and a fair few casinos (this is a national park, I thought the idea was national parks should remain unspoilt?). There was a Hershey's store though. So I stocked up on Hershey bars to bring back.

I'm off on the Big Train tomorrow, so I don't know if I'll be able to use the Internet until I get to Jasper on May 3rd. Back soon.

One more picture: