Tag Archives: Holiday travel

Rocky II

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Saturday 3 September 2022 – Timing had not permitted us a chance to experience the delights of Kamloops in person, so here is a photo of it that I found on the wall of our hotel bedroom.

Through sheer effort of will, combined with a certain amount of sleepwalking, we achieved the 0610 rendezvous with the coach that would take us back out to the industrial wasteland where we could board the Rocky Mountaineer for the second part of our journey that would end in Banff.

As the journey started, the scenery was very different from the previous day’s – much more greenery to be seen.

(more Hoodoos to be seen in the above)

and also, since the sparrows were still farting in the gathering dawn outside the coach, we got some nice sun rising photos

as well as some lovely reflections in the waters beside the railway.

The scenery then reverted to being broadly similar to what we’d seen the previous day,

i.e. subject to the same challenges of grabbing a shot between the trees lining the railway track.

We took a latish breakfast, since we were Second Sitting today, and passed a nice hour or so chatting to Judy and Tom, who are from Maui, Hawaii, which sounds a lovely place to live.

There were some moments of variety.  Jane spotted these snow sheds protecting the railway on the far side of the valley from winter avalanches

and I got a shot of some on our side.

And then it was time for lunch.  We passed lunch having a pleasant chat to an Australian couple, Nikki and Mark, from Fingal Bay, some 200km up the coast from Sydney.  At the same time, we were passing some spectacular scenery with some gorgeous colours, so part of the lunch consisted of a game where Mark would spot approaching gaps in the trees and Jane (sitting opposite) would miss them in trying to capture a photo through the window.

After a while, I simply couldn’t resist the lure of getting to the (rather less hot and smelly) open platform to try to capture some of this scenery, but I was a bit too late.  It didn’t, overall, matter, though – see later. I did get some decent photos as we went along, in many cases being still unable to resist the bendy train cliché.

We even saw some evidence of snow, or more likely glaciers, in the distant mountains, although the view was typical Walker “would have been better if it were clearer”.

There were some other nice scenes to capture as we went along, though nothing as arresting as what had rushed by us at lunch time.

Just as I was ruing my failure to take up on the photo opportunities on offer during lunch, as we were nearing Lake Louise and Banff, things really looked up.

The following 30 minutes provided an elegant demonstration of the reasons I no longer do any film photography.  The scenery was really spectacular with photo opportunities rushing past in rapid succession at 60mph.  Had I been using film, I would have missed almost all of them and/or got unsatisfactory images through not being able to quickly review as I went and having to change film rolls every 36 shots.  As it was, I took over 200 pictures in that half an hour.  Most of them were flawed in some way, but some were utterly lovely.  Well, I think so. Here they are, taken from either side of the train on that final rush into Banff.

These were worth letting my gin and tonic go warm for, I can tell you.

Then before we knew it, there we were in Banff and it was time to say goodbye to friends we’d made during the journey – Judy and Tom and Nikki and Mark – and Bonnie (and George) from Toronto, who Jane had had a long chat with whilst I was in photographic ecstasies on the carriage photo platform. It was also time to say goodbye to the four young folk who had worked so hard to keep us fed, watered and organised for the last two days

Stephanie, David, Vivek and Sian.

The transfer from train to hotel was as well-organised as all the other logistical elements of the trip and very soon we were checked in to the Fox Suites in Banff.  We have a couple of days here, with much potential for enjoying ourselves and getting some good photos.  One can’t ask for much more than that, except perhaps to wish that you will come back and take a look at how things unfolded.

 

A Rocky Start

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Friday 2 September 2022 – We didn’t exactly spring out of bed with a song on our lips, but at least we were conscious and operational in time to make it down to the hotel lobby to catch the 0645 coach to the Rocky Mountaineer that would whisk us, over the course of two days, to Banff. Many other people had the same idea

and before long a sturdily-built lady with a sturdily-built voice started the process of getting us all organised as part of the cohort of 791 guests who would be on board the train. The whole logistical process was a little slow to get going, as we stood in a queue just long enough to wonder WTF was going on, but once things started to move it all proceeded smoothly – roll call, hand over bags, get on coach, transfer to station, get on train.

The only thing I was worried about was how my backpack was going to be treated. This is the 30lb monster full of photographic and ancillary gear that I’ve been toting around as hand baggage trying to pretend that it’s not heavy in case an airline operative smells a rat; but there is no room by the seating on the train for items this chunky, so I took out the laptop before handing it over with my fingers crossed that the contents would make it OK.

We were Gold Leaf class – obviously – so we had seating upstairs with big windows, the better to see our reflections in when trying to take photos.

Dining would be downstairs – immediately in our case, as we were first seating for breakfast.

Experience – or luck – pays when choosing the right breakfast.  Jane chose yoghurt and fruit, and I chose bacon and eggs. I came out ahead, as the yoghurt and fruit portion was miserably small. We also had to get used to the pace and quality of the service which were, respectively, leisurely and somewhat random. In our carriage, all the staff were friendly and willing, but not particularly skillful or well-organised. Upstairs, two lasses dispensed commentary on the passing countryside and drinks; downstairs a pair of waiters dispensed food. All were young, all were enthusiastic, all tried really hard, but I think lacked experience; and, of course, space is limited, which makes things more complicated, but we didn’t come away from our time on the Rocky Mountaineer particularly overawed by the service.

There were some notable scenes to be, erm, seen on day one as we made our way out of Vancouver

towards the overnight stop at a place with the unlikely name of Kamloops. The route broadly follows the Canadian Pacific Highway, which, in turn follows first the Fraser River and then the Thompson River.  This gives the opportunity to catch the odd occasional decent photo of, for example, bridges.

The suspension bridge shown above ran into a big problem after it was opened because of the Canadian climate; the steel suspension cables would get encased in ice during the winters, occasionally dropping ice on passing cars during the thaw. This caused too much paperwork, so technology has been installed to heat the cables to stop them freezing.

Jane got some nice photos of the passing landscape from her window

while I was sure that the best place to take photos was on a platform which was the entrance vestibule of the carriage, as I wanted to avoid reflections. This was noisy, smelly (mainly because the platform was just downwind from the toilets) and, eventually hot, as the temperature went above 30°C in places. But one could get decent photos of some passing scenes, mainly by waiting for gaps in the trees. These were a rare and precious commodity, but every so often one could get a nice shot, such as these of Hell’s Gate.

It has to be said that the landscape didn’t vary hugely for the rest of the day. We were beside the river, which offered many nice views

that gradually opened out into Bigger Country

but there was relatively little variety. I did, of course, look for the inevitable “train going round the bend” shots, which are hugely cliched but can give quite nice results.

 

Every so often there was an extra element one could include, like a bridge,

(this is at a junction called Cisco, where Canada national and Canada Pacific railways cross each other)

or a tunnel,

or a rock formation such as these Hoodoos,

(which are hard rock on top of soft rock, giving a risk of rock falls which led to a superstition that the Hoodoos were alive and threw rocks at anyone settling below them)

or one of the unimaginably long freight trains which also ply this route,

(seen above on the opposite bank)

occasionally coming right at you.

Right in the centre of one bridge, you can see an osprey’s nest which has been in use by a particular osprey family for over 100 years

and the odd occasional eagle’s nest could also be spotted,

and also, as we headed towards Kamloops, bighorn sheep.

I’m indebted to Jane who took some great pictures from her (cool, comfortable) window seat whilst I teetered around on the (hot, smelly) platform down below.

The heat we experienced was not unusual – the area we passed through is the “hot spot” of British Columbia and wildfires are common and sometimes tragic. There had been one recently, which was still affecting the light as the sun began to set.

I took this photo under the fond impression that we were on the outskirts of Kamloops;

wrongly, as it turned out – we were still some 10km away from our destination. We ended up in a vast great set of railway sidings a good 20 minutes’ ride from Kamloops town, with many other dull trains and rolling stock. Jane spotted one brighter moment among the typical railside desolation.

Once we’d arrived at Kamloops (meaning “convergence of the waters” in the native language), a central spot in BC, the smooth logistics continued. We were issued with hotel room keys and a coach number. We boarded the relevant coach which took us to the right hotel where we found our bags actually in our room. My backpack contents appeared to have made it OK. Overall, an impressive process. So far….

Our hotel was the Wingate, not at all fancy but perfectly comfortable and well-organised, and the view from the room was nothing to write blogs about;

more importantly, there was a kettle in the room and Jane scored some milk so we could have a Nice Cup Of Tea. It was after 8pm by this stage, and we had to be ready to depart the hotel at 6.10am the next day; for some reason, a wander around downtown Kamloops didn’t seem as attractive a proposition as, say, getting some sleep. Therefore a swift burst of internetting, a final cuppa and getting our heads down with the alarm set for 0500 marked the end of the day.

The Rocky Mountaineer adventure continues, with the promise of more varied and interesting landscapes to be photographed, so please come back and find out if the promise was fulfilled.

 

 

Stanley Nice

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Thursday 1 September 2022 – Our last day in Vancouver dawned bright and sunny, with the prospect of the weather staying that way all day.  Guess how we spent most of it?  Yup – we went for a walk.  The obvious area for us to explore, because we’d gone in most other directions, was northwards to Stanley Park.  Exploring there fitted our schedule which had to include a couple of other items, one tedious but necessary and the other much more appealing. We had to be back by about 4pm, so that allowed us our usual latish breakfast before we set out – no mad dogs, but two English folk going out in the midday sun.

Our route gave me the opportunity to try a second time at photographing a couple of scenes.  The first was the “Cauldron”, created for the 2010 Winter Olympics here.  This time it wasn’t beset by hordes of people dressed in white.

Nearby was something we hadn’t spotted before – a highly pixellated statue of an Orca.

As we walked towards the park, we were overtaken by a paddle steamer (or “sternwheeler” as they call them in these here parts)

and we walked along the pleasant pedestrian trail, nicely segregated from hordes of people shooting by on various wheeled contraptions, through the gentrified Coal harbour, near which is another interesting architectural exhibit.

As well as trees and general greenery, of which there’s a thousand acres overall, there are many items of interest in the park.  Statues abound:


Robbie Burns, for no particular reason beyond the fact that he was famous, but I suppose the justification could be verse;


Harry Jerome, BC Athlete of the Century 1871 – 1971, holder of several world records, including 10.0 seconds for the 100 metres (1960); and


Lord Stanley,16th Earl of Derby, after whom the park is named.

There’s a miniature railway, which is jolly cute

and of which I had formed a mental image as having a steam train pulling the carriages. However

I was disabused of that notion. It’s still cute, but would be really something if they could actually manage a steam engine.

We’d been walking for about an hour by this stage in temperatures which were officially in the low 20s but which, in the full sunshine, felt a lot higher. So when we passed the rose garden

and its inviting pavilion

the prospect of a coffee or similar became very attractive. The staff seemed a little taken aback by having actual customers, but eventually things got into gear and we got decent coffee, and I had a beer to replace the electrolytes lost thus far on such a hot day.

Our wanderings then led us to the banks of Beaver Lake. At first it was challenging to believe that it was actually a lake

But it was, really.

We then headed towards the trail that leads round the edge of the park, as we wanted to see the Lions Gate Bridge, the large suspension bridge that crosses Vancouver Harbour to the north. Or south, if you’re coming back. It’s very impressive

but kind of difficult to convey photographically. We spent some time trying to do this and, basically, failing, so turned back to walk the waterside trail hotelwards. This took us past a small beach

and towards some further curiosities: a lumberman’s arch;

a kids’ splashpark;

a replica figurehead of the SS Empress of Japan, which took cargo to and from the orient around the turn of the 20th century –

presumably worth displaying because figureheads went out of fashion pretty sharply once steam ships, erm, took off; and a statue called “Girl In A Wetsuit”

Though initially Gull In A Wetsuit seemed more appropriate. Eventually the annoying bird left and I could get a proper version

and we carried on round the edge of the park. There’s never a dull moment: totem poles;

a splendid view of the sulphur processing facility on the opposite shore of the harbour (it’s from Alberta, apparently – the sulphur, that is, not the machinery);

the Nine O’Clock Gun

with its warning

(which is helpful, but goes nowhere near explaining why there’s a loud bang every night);  evidence that the segregated walking/cycling trail had its roots well before cycling became cool;

And even – gasp! – some wildlife.

Heron and harbour seal respectively and unconcernedly fishing and sunbathing (upside-down) as city life went on around them.

We’d walked a fair bit, but it’s clear from the map of our ramblings that we’d left a lot of the park unexplored,

Maybe we’ll be able to get back in some future life and explore further….

As you leave the park, there’s the very impressive HQ of the Vancouver Rowing Club

and then you join the trail leading back into Vancouver city. This gave me an opportunity to get some nice photos of my favourite type: reflections,

including a second attempt at one I tried on our previous visit;

 

I’m a bit happier with this version.

This brought us back to the city and the first, tedious, one of the two things we had to achieve – checking in for the Rocky Mountaineer, which will be our home for the next couple of days as we start Part Two. Our advance party (otherwise known as brother Chris, who has been about a month ahead of us on his version of a Canadian odyssey) had reported scenes of queues, chaos and confusion at the Pan Pacific Hotel, where a check-in facility had been set up. So we went in to scout out the scene. What we found was just a genteel and well-behaved (but quite long) queue,

So, since I know my place, I did my job as queue placeholder whilst Jane nipped back to the room for the paperwork. Over about half an hour we slowly edged forward and eventually reached the front. Because Jane is superbly well-organised, there was no call for chaos, or indeed confusion; we had all the right paperwork to hand, had checked in online and had our boarding passes; and so very swiftly got our baggage tags and instructions. These included being ready to leave our hotel at 0650 the next day, unfortunately, but, hey, that’s the price we pay for being on holiday.

That then (preparatory packing aside) left the way clear for the second, happily anticipated task, which was to meet the Delightful Danes, Philina and Søren, whose company we’d enjoyed so much in Farewell Harbour. Philina got in touch via this very blog and we established that we overlapped for one evening in Vancouver, so we went to meet them at a local eatery called Riley’s and had a very fine time. They had also had great luck with the wildlife at the lodge – fishing bears and breaching humpbacks, for example – and had visited a couple of wonderful sounding places. It was lovely to catch up with them, and I hope we will get a chance to meet them again some time in the future.

Then all we had to do was to set the alarm for 0530 in preparation for the start of Part Two – The Rocky Mountain Bit. Be assured that whenever I can get time and internet access I will report back, so please keep an eye out for the next thrilling installment.