Category: canada

Vancouver

by theholmesteader, posted in canada, International, Uncategorized

Saturday 27th September

After an early breakfast, we departed the ship in Canada Place and took a taxi up to the Sutton Place Hotel, our accommodation for our stay in Vancouver. As expected, we were allocated a different room from our previous stay, and as the room wasn’t ready, we checked in our luggage and went for a walk around town to familiarise ourselves with the area. In typical Jim Jimmies fashion, we ended up walking for miles, unwittingly taking in many of Vancouver’s famous sights in areas such as Chinatown and Gastown as we went, we both enjoyed the peaceful Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Chinese Garden we stumbled upon, it was a really special place, you would be forgiven for forgetting that you were in Canada and not somewhere in China, we also came agross the Sam Kee Building, at just six feet two inches deep, it is said to be the world’s narrowest freestanding office building.

Once we were able to access our room, we unpacked and had a short siesta before heading out to Fable, a local Bar & Diner, for our evening meal. A short walk back to the hotel ended a long and tiring day.

Sunday 28th September

We decided to use the local HOHO bus, which fortunately stopped outside our hotel, to explore the city. Most of the journey through the main sights confirmed that we had indeed visited them all on our walk yesterday. As it was a nice day, we decided to hop off the bus on Granville Island for lunch. This area of the city, previously a derelict industrial area, has been gentrified like many such areas with microbreweries, restaurants, art studios and a bustling Public Market, where we enjoyed our lunch sitting by the waterfront watching the boats go by. There is also Vancouver’s version of silo art with it’s Giants murals on the Island. We then hopped back on the bus to take us to the famed Stanley Park, our friend Cheryl had recommended it to us; it was so relaxing walking through the historic trees of the park before reaching the seawall, which provided us with stunning views of the city, and the ‘almost a copy of Copenhagen’s Little Mermaid statue’, Vancouver’s ‘Girl in a Wetsuit‘ statue. Another of Vancouver’s tourist hotspots within the park is a collection of native Totem Poles, which we found very interesting and well worth seeing. We then got lost in the myriad of forest paths, before admitting defeat and returning to the Aquarium area to ask for directions to the HOHO bus stop for our return trip to the hotel, a nice meal after our siesta finished off yet another excellent day.

Monday 29th September

Back on the HOHO bus to take us back downtown to the Canada Place area, where we booked a visit to FlyOver Canada, an interactive and immersive flying journey going East to West over Canada’s spectacular sights, sounds and stories given a whole new perspective. We soared above the various territories, swooped through sailing ships, and over cities, towns and villages. We even took a dip into the ocean and swam with beautiful Beluga Whales. This was an attraction that I would highly recommend to anyone visiting Vancouver.

Despite trying to find The Lamplighters Tavern, reputedly one of Vancouver’s oldest pubs, open on many occasions, we elected to visit the second-oldest, The Cambie (1897), for lunch, which caused us a little bit of confusion, as The Lamplighters Tavern is dated from 1899 and is said to be the oldest. We found this bar to be an interesting spot with good food and beer at a reasonable cost. I especially liked the table tops painted by local artists. We decided to try out the local Skytrain on our return to the hotel, hoping to see some sights from on high, only to be disappointed when most of the journey took place in tunnels. Another local dinner and a couple of beers to end the day went down well.

Tuesday 30th September

A short walk downtown, stopping off for breakfast in one of our favourite Tim Hortons, brought us to Canada Place and the site of Vancouver’s Olympic Cauldron. There was also a large ‘Digital Orca’ nearby, which prompted Jim to think of giant Lego. Whilst there, we caught a free shuttle bus to the Capilano Suspension Bridge visitor attraction. The Capilano Suspension Bridge is a narrow, swaying suspension bridge 140 metres long, 70 metres above the Capilano River. The park it is situated in is part of a forest with giant Douglas firs, Red Cedars and Hemlock trees, with the added attraction of the Treetops Adventures, which consists of a series of footbridges suspended between tall trees, taking us up into the tree tops with stunning views of the forest floor below. This was another attraction I would highly recommend to anyone visiting Vancouver.

I will admit that it can get a bit tiring for those of an older generation, as can be seen below.

Still unable to find the Lamplighters open, we returned to the Cambie for a lunchtime pint before going back to the hotel to pack our luggage in readiness for our journey home. The day was finished off by a trip down to Gastown, originally to visit The Moose Garage for our dinner, but on our arrival, we found the music to be far too loud for our aged ears, so we went to the nearby Blarney Stone, an Irish pub, for a good dinner and a couple of refreshments for our last night in town.

Wednesday 1st October

We were collected by our driver early in the morning for our 30-minute drive to the airport, which gave us around 3 hours to hang around, and as our first flight was a domestic one, the departure lounge was pretty basic, but there was sufficient there for us to get a breakfast, and it gave us a chance to reflect on our wonderful adventure in Canada and Alaska. The flight to Toronto was uneventful, likewise the final flight from there to Edinburgh, where we cleared immigration and customs with no problems and were collected by Dan, who was especially happy that we were able to meet his challenge in finding Starbucks outlets, particularly the one in Alaska.

This has been a tremendous trip, full of memories of places visited, stunning scenery, people we met along the way, and, once again, great companionship travelling with Jim. This is one I will not forget in a hurry.

Banff to Vancouver

by theholmesteader, posted in canada, International, Rail Journey, Thailand, Travel, Uncategorized

Thursday 18th September – Banff – Rocky Mountaineer

A special treat for us today, as we set off on our Rocky Mountaineer train on their “First Passage to the West” journey from Banff to Vancouver. As this is a private railway company, and there are no public access stations, we were collected at the hotel by the Rocky Mountaineer team. At this point, we said goodbye to our luggage before being taken by coach to their terminal in Banff, where we were greeted by our carriage hosts and invited to board car number 3 via a lovely red carpet, guided upstairs and shown to our very comfortable seats near the rear of the car, where we settled ourselves down and started exploring our environment for the next 2 days.

Melissa and Victor

We had booked a Goldleaf Service rather than the Silverleaf, which provided us with a double-decked carriage with a lower deck containing a dining room, large, spacious and clean toilets, an open-air viewing platform, whilst on the upper deck we had larger, comfier reclining seats with tons of legroom, plus fabulous full glass-dome windows with panoramic views. This level of service also provided an upgraded food and drinks package plus a slightly superior hotel at our mid-point stopover. Was it worth the additional cost? Read my conclusions at the end of the journey.

Once underway after being waved off by the station staff, we made our way through some stunning scenery, and each corner when turned provided another beautiful vista. The staff were very attentive and after an initial safety briefing, our carriage hosts Robert, Victor and Melissa described the day’s schedule and the sequence of dining options. We were lucky to be allocated to the first breakfast group today, and went down to the dining room for a really good breakfast. When entering the dining room, you are asked if you wish to share your table with other travellers. We chose to do so, and during our 2 days, we met and chatted with some friendly and interesting people. Having previously seen some YouTube videos of the journey, we were looking forward to some good food, and we were not disappointed.

Robert in the background

The day continued, with Robert giving us a running commentary highlighting the areas we passed through, pointing out the significant attractions. At times, there were just too many sights that it was difficult to photograph them all. All of this was done whilst being served complementary drinks and snacks. All too soon, lunch time rolled around, and we went down to the dining car once again for some excellent food accompanied by a glass or two of fine Canadian wine.

Jim loved this, he had it twice

When we were passing through towns and villages along the way, it was really good to see people being excited when the train passed through. People were holding up children so they could see the train. People were running out of their homes to the trackside to wave. One pair of fans, Robert told us, is Doris and her husband Brian, who greet the train each time it passes their house, near the town of Canoe. He told us that the Rocky Mountaineer staff became so fond of Doris’s big, joyful waves that when they discovered that they had an approaching anniversary, they invited them on board for a trip to celebrate. They then sent Rocky Mountaineer staff to wave at them as they passed their own house. It was eventually discovered that it was their dogs who could tell from the sounds and vibrations of the Rocky Mountaineer trains that alerted them when they were approaching. Right on schedule, there they were, standing on their back porch, wildly waving at us as we passed. As you can imagine, we were all just as wild with our returning waves.

The pace of the journey was at all times dictated by the volume of traffic on the line at any given time, with freight trains taking precedence. As there were a number of trains in front of us, we were often slightly delayed. Due to these delays, we were served an extra meal at dinner time, which was very welcome. It also allowed us to take some nice sunset photographs on the way. I thought that I would be taking tons of photographs during the trip, but there was just too much wonderful scenery of mountains, rivers and lakes, that it was impossible to capture it all. We were told that this is the busy season for grain trains, which are given priority on the line. This caused us to reach Kamloops much later than expected. On arrival, we boarded coaches in the dark and were taken to our hotel, the Windgate, to find our luggage already in our room, or at least some of it. By the time we checked in and searched, and found Jim’s misplaced backpack, it was time for bed.

Friday 19th September – Rocky Mountaineer

Day 2 of our railway journey started with us being collected early in the morning and taken back by coach to the Rocky Mountaineer terminal to reboard the train to be waved off by the terminal staff. We were later told that they were the night shift staff, and waving the train off was the last duty of their shift. As we had our meals on the first sitting yesterday, it was our turn to dine in the second sitting, while the first group were having their breakfast, we were given a coffee and a pastry. This was a nice way to start the day, riding along the Kamloops Lakeshore watching the eagles soaring above the waters, in yet another brilliantly sunny day, the weather on this trip has surpassed us; we never expected it to be so sunny and warm.

Early on in our journey, we encountered a couple of giant freight trains. The length of these trains is mind-boggling, at over 3 miles long, with well over 150 box cars; one recently took well over 5 minutes to pass us.

As we travelled further west, following the banks of the magnificent Fraser River, the landscape changed from an almost arid prairie to more agricultural flat lands. Our crew, Robert, Victor and Melissa, kept us informed and entertained during the journey. It appeared that all the hosts on board were linked via radio, so they were able to point out any highlights and wildlife we encountered along the way, but importantly, they kept us going with drinks and snacks as we travelled.

I apologise for the lack of photographs in this edition of the blog. We were enjoying the journey so much, it seemed such a shame to miss anything whilst behind a camera, so to compensate, here is another YouTube video; however, this one shows our journey in reverse, but we did pass through all of the places mentioned.

We eventually arrived in Vancouver and were taken by coach to the Sutton Place hotel, when we checked in and given our room key, we were very pleasantly surprised by the room we were allocated and opened the door, it was fun to walk down our hallway towards our sitting room, which sat alongside our kitchen and dining room, then we discovered the 2 bedrooms with their giant king sized beds, I chose the en-suite one, mainly due to my nocturnal activities, whilst Jim was more than happy with the other one. The large balcony overlooking the city was an added bonus.

Saturday 20th September – Vancouver

After a visit to the local Tim Horton’s for a quick breakfast, we returned to the hotel to finish packing and took advantage of a suitable time to catch up with family in Scotland and Australia, before departing on our cruise.

After a bit of a Snafu with an Uber hire, we were eventually dropped off at the Canada Place cruise terminal, where we had to pass through security and USA customs and immigration. Despite the long queues, we passed through this fairly quickly, and we boarded the MV Konigsdam and were directed to our stateroom.

In conclusion

I have travelled on many rail journeys listed as one of the world’s most scenic, only to find them a wee bit mediocre. This journey, however, I would certainly say has been the best I have travelled on to date. The scenery we passed was fantastic; there were sights to be seen around every bend and turn in the route. The Goldleaf carriage, with its high, full glass-dome windows, which provided wonderful views of that scenery, made it all the more special with comfortable seats, entertaining and knowledgeable hosts, a lower deck dining room and viewing platform, in addition to the wonderful food and drinks that would rival any high-class restaurant, puts the service at the top of my list. If you are considering a trip on the Rocky Mountaineer, don’t hesitate to upgrade to the Goldleaf service; it certainly is worth the additional cost.

The next instalment of this trip’s blog will follow shortly

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