USA: Buses, bison and more buses

Good evening from the comfy little spot I've grabbed in Starbucks. Be warned: I've spent a large part of the past week on buses, but I promise other interesting things have happened too.

Want all the toys

Saturday was my final day in Seattle. First stop, Pike Place Market yet again for a brunch of currywurst. Om nom nom.

After that, I took a stroll across to Union Lake, which is kind of pretty.

It also happens to be home to the Museum of History and Industry, where I spent the rest of the day playing with interactive displays. They had an excellent exhibition about toys from the 50s through 80s on, which meant I got to play with Slinky.

Yes. I am a child. Deal with it.

Oh, and another tiny display of Microsoft related things. Including these floppy disks. Any readers remember the really huge ones? 3.5 inch ones were just on the way out when I was at school.

That is pretty much all I did with my Saturday. I had wanted to have an early night since I'd be spending about 24 hours on a bus in the near futre, but that plan was thwarted by the Night Market going on across the street from the hostel. I'm not sure why the Night Market warranted thumping bass-heavy music, but apparently it did. Ugh.

Where is the bus?

At any rate, I managed to wake up early enough to catch my 9am bus. The drive out of Seattle was lovely - out through the mountains - but once we got beyond that it turned into pretty bland rolling yellow hills. High point of the initial drive was going through Yakima, which long-forgotten GCSE Geography lessons taught me suffered from ashfall during the 1980 eruption of Mount St Helens.

Despite my initial excitement, that mountain turned out to be Mount Adams, not St Helens. Damn.

The bus then booted us all out in the middle of nowhere, aka Stanfield, Oregon, to await our connection. Seriously, middle of nowhere. Look.

I have no idea where the town/village/farm is in relation to this service station. We should have been waiting about 20 minutes. 40 at the most. The bus finally turned up an hour later. And then the driver proceeded to take a half hour break while the half-dozen of us poor buggers who'd come from Seattle stood around in confusion.

Anyway, we made it onto the bus in the end. Bearing in mind this was at nearly 5pm and we'd left Seattle at just after 9am. Boredom was setting in as anyone who's seen my Facebook feed for the period could have guessed...

Sometime after 10pm (or was it 11?) we arrived in Boise, Idaho and state number 4 on my trek, where we proceeded to wait another 45 minutes for the bus to be cleaned. So bored. So tired. Dreading at this point that I wouldn't be able to sleep on the bus.

Apparently I needn't have worried. Once we were back on the bus, I fell asleep almost straight off and stayed that well until just before we arrived in Salt Lake City just after 7am the next morning.

I slept on a bus. Oh my god.

Dancing coffee cups

I spent my Monday in Salt Lake. Most of that time, from memory, was spent in Starbucks or McDonalds, downing caffeine like there was no tomorrow. My somewhat sleep brain found this very amusing, since Salt Lake City is the heart of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, aka the Mormons and Mormons aren't supposed to drink tea or coffee.

Unfortunately, I'm also a huge fan of the musical The Book of Mormon, which addresses the above doctrine in a song called Spooky Mormon Hell Dream using dancing Starbucks cups... which in my sleep-addled state filled my brain.

This was even more hilarious when I decided to check out Temple Square and had a chat with a lovely young lady named Sister Gunther who kindly gave me a copy of the Book of Mormon and also asked if I'd seen the musical. I admitted that I'd had various songs from it stuck in my head all day, to which her response was "yes, my friend told me it was catchy." She didn't seem offended, at least.

Temple Square is actually a pretty cool area. Here is the Temple, which as a non-Mormon more than likely going to a firey hell, I'm not allowed in.

I also visited the Church History Museum. Very interesting, although I did have to resist the urge to laugh at certain things. That would have been rude and disrespectful. Some of the early history is pretty bizarre though - another testament, written on golden plates in an unknown language and script? Okay... Here is an early print of the Book.

While perusing the book selection in the shop I got talking to a couple from the Church who were fascinated by my Englishness and offered to take me to lunch. It was very sweet of them, but I worried we'd end up having a discussion about my religious beliefs (which are non-existent) and so I tried to politely turn them down. They were quite persistent.

Bless. They probably wanted to save my soul or something...

After many more hours mooching around or drinking tea wherever I could get my hands on it, I finally got on another bus. Yes. Another bus. Off one in the morning, onto the next one at 10pm.

This one took me as far as Rexburg, ID and then I had to spend 3 hours waiting in the lobby of a hotel where a friendly staff member offered me breakfast. Lovely lady.

When I finally got onto the next connecting bus, I was knackered. I hadn't slept as well on the way to Rexburg and had only managed an hour or so at the hotel, so I wasn't all that surprised when I awoke at West Yellowstone, 2 hours after leaving the hotel with aches in weird places because I'd clearly fallen asleep as soon as I got in the seat.

It's fucking freezing

West Yellowstone is not within Yellowstone National Park. It sits in Montana, just a mile or so from the park entrance. Indeed, it's the main gateway into the park. I'd like to say that's why I chose it, but it's not - it's just the only place I could find almost reasonably priced accomodation, courtesy of the Madison Hotel which has a couple of dorm rooms.

Pretty cool place, the Madison - it's one of the earliest hotels catering to the park and in the early days even hosted a couple of presidents of the USA.

Anyway, I was too knackered to do much that first day and despite a suggestion from the lady at the hotel desk of a walk down to the river, it was much too cold venture out. There was snow on the fricking mountains. Instead, I first visited one of the tour companies to get a trip planned into the park and then checked out a film about the park at the IMAX. Not too bad.

The Yellowstone Historic Center Museum was much more interesting. It's housed in the old Union Pacific train depot from the days when most of the park's visitors came in by rail. Really fascinating little place and great for killing a few hours. Covers everything from the park's foundation in 1872 to the 1959 earthquake at Hebgen Lake and the devastating 1988 wildfires.

That's Snaggletooth the bear, once a famous fixture in the park until 2 idiots inexplicably shot him.

I then spent the evening reading and trying to convince my brain to go to bed at a sensible time so as not to bugger up my body clock. Somehow I succeeded...

Get him, Bison, get him

On my second day in West Yellowstone, I took a bus trip into the park, driven and guided by the excellent Laurie. Yellowstone is beautiful. Really, stunningly beautiful. There's wildlife everywhere, from elk grazing by the Madison river.

To bison calmly sitting in the many meadows alongside the road.

Of course, with the wildlife so close by, it makes for some great photo opportunities. It also makes for human stupidity. Such as the guy we spotted taking a photo of a bison at the side of the road. He was out of his car. The bison was maybe 5 metres away. They might look dopey, but they can run fucking quick when they feel like it.

Laurie up front started chanting "get him, bison, get him" before we spotted a ranger coming down the road ready to chase the guy back into his car. Stupid man,

We stopped at several of the park's famous hydrothermal features during the day. One of my favourites was the Fountain Paint Pots area, not so much for the features themselves, although they were awesome, but for these trees.

They're known as bobby socks trees because of the white patch at the bottom of the trunks. They're dead, killed off when the hot, acidic water from the nearby hot springs changed course and flowed around them. The dead trees still soaked up some of the water, which is rich in silicate minerals and this turned their bases white.

Of course, this being Yellowstone, we also had to check out Old Faithful, the most famous geyser in the park.

I finally got that photo after waiting about half an hour. It's pretty impressive - the eruptions last about 3-5 minutes on average. Glad I arrived well before the predicted eruption time though - look at the crowd.

Also, contrary to popular belief, Old Faithful isn't all that faithful. It goes off every 92 minutes on average, but that's give or take 10 minutes, hence why I made sure I got there early.

Brits looking for good geysers - go to Iceland. Strokkur goes off every 10 minutes more or less. Means less time standing out in the cold.

Our final big stop for the day was at the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. And yes. It is grand and it's a canyon. It's also likely where the Yellowstone River, for which the park is named, got its name.

It's yellow. No filters required. All that hydrothermal activity has chemically altered and stained the rocks over the years and now the whole canyon is streaked with these amazing colours.

So, yeah, Yellowstone is beautiful. I need to go back when I get a chance. There's so much more of the park to explore.

You're back again!

I spent my final day in quaint West Yellowstone exploring the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Centre. The centre operates as both an educational facility, bringing people up to speed with the habits and dangers of bears and wolves and also as a rescue centre for bears removed from the park and surrounding areas for safety reasons. The wolves came from a breeding facility for movies. Poor things. They're gorgeous creatures.

The bears also help out with testing supposedly bear-proof containers. I'm sure this sleeping looking dude could get into most coolers in a matter of seconds if there was something yummy smelling in it.

Despite being a pretty small place, I spent a good 4 hours there. OK, so that might be partly because I got into a staring contest with one of the wolves...

But I also went to three of the naturalist talks, where I met this lovely owl, who is tiny.

And this gorgeous rough-legged hawk.

Oh, yeah, the centre rescues birds too. They have a trio of bald eagles who reminded me very much of the vultures in The Jungle Book...

Not a bad way to spend my last day in the area. After that, I took a brief walk around the historic part of town, which included the pretty cool Dining Lodge that was owned by the Union Pacific to feed the many rail passengers when they got off the train.

Also, this row of buildings which includes my hotel.

Looks just like something out of the Old West. Much of it is original, having been built in the early 1900s.

Sadly, I had to abandon the town to get yet another bus back to Rexburg. The 2 hour journey was rather more interesting than the one inbound, given that I was more awake and also the only one on the bus, so I ended up having a conversation with my driver who mostly wanted to know about differences between the US and UK. I tried to explain the concept of the monarchy and the Royal Family, but I'm not sure he quite got it.

And then I had to spend 6 hours in the hotel lobby at Rexburg waiting for my connection. There was no mention of this when I booked the ticket, otherwise I might have booked a different bus. Fortunately, one of the staff members said I was welcome to help myself to the free hot drinks and then the friendly lady from my previous visit popped in again. Her response was "you're back again!" Followed by a suggestion that I should try to get some sleep. She also said it was nice to see me again, which was a lovely little comment for my sleepy brain.

Screaming children, everywhere

At any rate, I got my bus and arrived back in sunny and hot Salt Lake City bright and early on Friday morning. I wasn't able to leave my bag at the hostel, so I had to lug it onto the Trax light rail and take it with me on the suprisingly long trip up the hillside to the Natural History Museum of Utah.

That place is awesome. I was expecting a pretty small museum, since it seems to be attached to the university. It's actually quite a big place - I easily spent 4 or 5 hours there. The collection includes a great selection of fossils, courtesy of Utah's famous fossil beds. Here is a wall of ceratopsian skulls.

Harold was not impressed about nearly being fed to a Deinosuchus...

There's also loads of interactive displays. I would have played with them a bit more, but the place was crawling with school kids. Obnoxious, rude school kids who didn't understand the concept of not pushing and actually giving other people a turn.

Also, the small child who pretty much shoved me out of the way so he could play with a thing about the tree of life that was way beyond his age range. Yeah, kid, if you know the terms eukarya, archaea and prokarya at the age of 4, then I'll accept that you'll understand this display.

I am not at all annoyed because a tiny child stopped me from playing with the geekery...

As always, I found the one gallery not full of children was the small minerals and gem section. Apparently kids aren't interested in shiny  rocks.

There's pretty good views from the terraces around the museum as well. If you squint, you might be able to pick out Great Salt Lake towards the right hand side of this photo.

Unfortunately, the haze made it a bit difficult to photograph anything with any precision. I know the lake is there, but even without looking through the camera it only showed up as a faintly blue sheen through the haze.

Tomorrow I have one more day to spare in Salt Lake City and then I'm on my way south to Monterey in California where I hope to go whale watching.

Just got to survive 2 more days of buses first...

Destination Realities: Canada

Sooo... I spent just over 2 months in Canada. It's a huge country. Really huge. With that in mind, how did my time there match up with my original plans?

I only really planned the beginning and very end of the trip, so here goes.

The Maritimes

1. Nova Scotia

Man, I had huge plans for Nova Scotia - Bay of Fundy, Lunenburg, Joggins... I only ended up spending about 5 days in the province, courtesy of ending up an a very short notice road trip with a fellow Brit I met on the first day. I did get to explore a bit of Halifax and I did see the Bay of Fundy and whales in it to boot. Didn't see much else of the province though.

2. Newfoundland

I would have loved to visit Newfoundland. However, while getting there would have been easy enough - ferry from Nova Scotia - getting around once I got there would have proved difficult and expensive. So Newfoundland will have to wait for now. I need someone who can drive...

3. New Brunswick

Not really part of my original plan, but I did end up spending a couple of days there. Admittedly, I spent that time mostly in the hostel (because it was raining) or in the station (because, woo, midnight train). Hmm...

4. Prince Edward Island

I'd not planned on visiting because I "didn't want to rush myself". Out of all of the maritime provinces, this is probably the place I felt least rushed. I spent nearly 3 days there, enjoying how quiet it was even despite the kitschy madness of Green Gables.

Quebec

5. Quebec City

I'd originally only planned on a week in Quebec province, but after rushing through the Maritimes in just over a week, I was ready to slow down. Which meant I ended up spending 4 days in beautiful Quebec City instead of the day or 2 I'd originally thought. As a result, I had much more time to go exploring the city's history. Great stuff.

6. Montreal

I spent 5 days in Montreal, the longest I'd stayed anywhere since I left Iceland. It would prove to be the beginning of a pattern - 4-5 day stays became my default as much as possible for the rest of my time in Canada. I'm glad I slowed down so much - Montreal had plenty to offer, even if it did rain some more.

7. Outdoorsy things

Yeah. I didn't end up doing any of those in Quebec. Getting caught outside in a torrential downpour doesn't count.

Ontario and the prairies

I didn't actually plan anything for this, really. I mostly just pootled through the big cities (Ottawa, Toronto) and revisited places from my previous trip (Kingston, Niagara, Hamilton). More on that in a bit.

As for the prairies, I hadn't really planned on anything there. I knew I wanted to take the train across from Toronto to Vancouver, but originally I was going to go non-stop. I decided 4 days on a train didn't sound like fun (says the girl who just booked a 51 hour bus journey), so I ended up stopping in Winnipeg and Edmonton and I'm very glad I did. Both cities just a little bit off the main tourist trail, but well worth visiting.

Vancouver and the Rockies

8. Vancouver Island

Yeah. That didn't happen. By the time I arrived in Vancouver I wasn't really in the mood for doing anything much. Despite breaking up my train journey, those nights trying to sleep on the train really seemed to screw with my brain.

9. Capilano Suspension Bridge

This did happen though. Success!!

10. Lake Louise

This also happened. It rained quite a bit and a big fucking bear scared the shit out of us at the campground, but we did see Lake Louise.

11. Burgess Shale

Didn't happen. We drove past it. And past the turn off for the Stanley Glacier trail, which runs past another outcrop of the same fossil-bearing shale. I made do with a few random museumm exhibits and the faint hope of spotting a fossil at Marble Canyon.

12. Riding, rafting, kayaking

Wow, I had all the outdoors things in mind for the Rockies. And we managed most of them (and more). Ziplining, canoeing, rafting, riding, bobsleigh (yes, bobsleigh). Plus a whole bunch of really nice walks. Success on that count.

13. Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump

This is a World Heritage Site south of Calgary and ultimately turned out to be just a bit too far out of the way. A shame, but it'll have to wait for another trip.

On first glance, it looks like I missed out on a lot of the things I originally planned or wanted to do. But I also did a lot more that I didn't intend. I took a road trip with someone I'd only just met and anyone who knows me will probably understand that that's quite a big deal for me. My time in Canada, while obviously amazing and great fun, also proved to me that I can deal with social situations and I can actually hold a conversation with people I don't know. It's lovely.

Now, things to bear in mind for anyone wanting to repeat the above. Because clearly everyone wants to take 2 months to travel Canada.

1. Canada is huge

Yes, I know this should be obvious, but it's worth mentioning. Getting around can take hours or even days unless you're going to focus on just a little bit of the country. A bus from the capital in Ottawa to Toronto takes about 3 hours. A train from Campbellton, New Brunswick to Quebec City takes 8 hours. And a train across from Vancouver to Toronto takes 4 days.

Yup. Huge. Maybe just focus on an area - Ontario around Toronto or Quebec & Montreal are probably good ideas.

2. Inter-city buses are pretty good

Greyhound's network runs from Ontario across to British Columbia. East of that connections are run by smaller provincial companies. Getting between the big cities is pretty easy and it's even possible to get a bus from Toronto out west to at least Calgary - I know, I met someone taking it. It took her 3 days.

3. Canadians really are friendly

I know it's a stereotype, but I've found it to be true. From the helpful attendant on the Toronto subway to the chap who parked the RV for us the first night we had it, the stereotype has held true and it's been absolutely lovely.

4. It's worth brushing up on French

I thought I would be all right in Quebec, Canada's French-speaking province - I learned a bit of French a very long time ago and I'd made sure to learn a couple of useful phrases like "I'm sorry, I don't understand." and "Do you speak English?". Oh, and I can say please, thank you, hello - all that malarkey.

However, in Quebec City at least, outside the tourist hub in the Old City, it's maybe worth knowing a little more. When I went to try poutine, the girl at the counter had to get her English speaking colleague to help because my French didn't stretch to understanding "eat in or take away?

That said, other Quebecois seemed quite amused by my appalling pronunciation of bonjour and were quite happy to talk to me in English.

5. Maple syrup

You have to try it. Proper maple syrup, not the stuff labelled "pancake syrup" or "original syrup". Maple syrup. Preferably with pancakes and bacon. Sausages are also acceptable. It shouldn't be so good.

Budget

Just to clarify: I've cut the last 2 weeks of my trip out of this because that was spent with my mother and sister and a lot of things had already been paid for.

Accommodation: worked out at less than £20 a night. I think this is pretty impressive given that I had to pay for a hotel for one night that cost me several times more than a hostel. Congratulations, me. Hostels in Canada range around the £15-£20 area, generally, with price spikes in Toronto over the summer, or so my hostel owner informed me. Out of the way places may also be more expensive - I paid $30 a night for a pretty basic place in Winnipeg, but it's the only hostel in the city.

AirBnB is pretty popular in Canada and some places you can find rooms cheaper than hostels. This is particularly good for places like Kingston, which have no hostels. At all.

Food: less than £5 a day. I'm pretty pleased with this considering I did treat myself to a couple of delicious brunches (looking at you, Original Pancake House...) and several trips to Tim Horton's. Fresh fruit and veg seems to be relatively expensive in Canada, but tinned goods are similarly priced to the UK. Plus, several of my hostels provided breakfast, which helped keep costs down.

Transport: less than £25 a day. This is hugely bumped up by the fact that in my first week I went halves on a car hire (at about $300 each) and then in August I took the train across the country which cost me nearly £500. Fortunately, the train had been budgetted for, although I loathed paying that much. If you don't take the train, transport can be done pretty cheap. A bus from Ottawa to Toronto costs about $20-25, and prices are similar between the other large cities in the east. City transit systems are pretty good - most will charge you about $3 for a single trip ticket.

Activities: about £5 a day. Obviously, this varied a lot. In Ottawa I bought a museum passport which covered all the big national museums and cost $45 (just over £30). Similarly, in Toronto I got a CityPass which covered the CN Tower, the Zoo, aquarium, Royal Ontario Museum and Casa Loma. Other costs mostly related to museum entry fees and the tourist trap that is Niagara Falls. Whale watching came in at a remarkably cheap $50 - that's £30 for a good 3 hours of sailing and a pod of fin whales right next to the boat.

Anyone else been to Canada? Is there anything I've missed that you think should be included? Let me know!

Canada: Lions & Tigers & Bears, Oh My!

Hola! I'm currently enjoying a few days of almost-laziness in Hamilton, about an hour from Toronto. I figured I've been on the go almost non-stop since I left the UK nearly 6 weeks ago, so I should probably just slow down for a bit. Hamilton's a fairly quiet place and the hostel I'm in only takes 10 guests, so I have the place almost to myself. Very nice.

Anyway, I should probably get back to updating what I've been up to since last week, shouldn't I? Yeah. That's probably a good idea.

The sparrows are up to something...

Having just said that I haven't really stopped since I left the UK, I must admit that's a little bit of a fib, since I spent most of last Saturday sitting in Queen's Park in Toronto reading. It was a lovely sunny day, much too hot to be doing much walking around, so I took myself and my tablet to the park and spent a few hours reading and people watching. Really peaceful, although I did feel oddly guilty about not doing any exploring. How strange.

Stuff the Panda, Save the Salamander

Fortunately, any annoyance that my travel brain might have had with me for not exploring was made up for on Sunday when I went to the zoo. This first meant I had to negotiate Toronto's public transport system, helped by the friendly man at the subway station who gave me very clear instructions as to which trains and buses to take.

Nearly 2 hours later, having taken a bus that very much felt like it was a "local bus for local people", I arrived at the zoo. What else to say? I spent all day there, somehow managed not to get sunburnt or dehydrated and generally squee'd at all the animals. Like this Panamanian Golden Frog, a species that might be extinct in the wild (but I'm not going to rant about that again...)

I also saw an otter (species not remembered) which I'm pretty sure was exhibiting stress/boredom behaviours. Y'know, swimming around the same circuit again. And again. And again. Much to the delight of the other visitors, much to my concern.

Also a beautiful lion pride. These guys are a white colour morph - they're not albinos, it's just a variant. Like having blonde versus brown hair. Beautiful colour and this guy was just asking to be photographed.

Orangutans are a favourite of mine and my dad's, so just for him, here's the really cruddy photos I managed of the rangy tangles.

I also got the pleasure of seeing one of the keepers doing training with a Sumatran Tiger. The tiger, called Harry, managed to do sit, down and up, but seemed to be having trouble with "open". I wondered if it was a new command he was learning and if the crowd hadn't been so huge, I wanted to ask the keeper about it. Ah well.

Aaaaand, that has helpfully not turned the right way. You might need to watch it sideways...

What else? The zoo's pretty huge and there were so many amazing animals I'm not sure what to include here. Especially since half of the things I find interesting, most people don't. Like that frog up there.

Oh, this grizzly bear trying to eat an apple. Because it made me smile.

The only things I don't have photos of that I think others might have liked are the pandas. I don't expecially like pandas. Yes, they are threatened by habitat destruction, but they're also an evolutionary dead end - seriously, they are bears that exclusively eat a plant that even herbivores would struggle to digest. Toronto Zoo currently has a panda pair and they've recently had cubs. I'm sure they're very cute, but I wasn't willing to spend an hour and half queuing to see an animal that I have such a bad opinion of. There are other animals just as deserving of the amount of money ploughed into panda conservation that don't get it because they're not appealling. Like that frog up there. Again.

Rant over. I think that's quite enough about the zoo now, don't you think? Oh, I should point out that the "stuff the panda, save the salamander" comment is from the brilliant zoologist Lucy Cooke, also known as the Amphibian Avenger and founder of the popular Slothville blog.

I'M ON A BUS! AGAIN!

The next day I had yet another bus trip to look forward to. I'm getting good at these. I'm even getting good at dealing with the irritation when the bus is delayed for an hour. How very dare it? Especially since I spent that hour standing in the yard at the bus terminal in 30 degree heat with a whole load of bus exhausts being grotty around me. Eww.

Anyway, the bus finally arrived and I made it, somewhat later than planned, to Niagara, on the border with the US. According to my notes, I spent a large part of the evening laughing at the angry man who the front desk refused to check in because he had no ID. Evidently, this was an uneventful day. That's the problem with all these buses - I get on the bus thinking I'll do some exploring when I get to my destination. Then I get off the bus and I just want to sit down with a cuppa  and a book and then go to bed. I don't know what they pump into the air con on those things, but they make me sleepy.

It's like Blackpool but more interesting

Lethargy was out of the window the next morning, no matter how much I really wanted to stay in bed. I've been to Niagara before and I know how busy it gets, so I planned on getting into town fairly early before the crowds got too mad. First stop, the classic boat trip into the mists at the base of Horseshoe Falls.

Very quick geography lesson: the Niagara River forms the border between the US and Canada in this area. Horseshoe Falls are on the Canadian side, American Falls are on the US side. Horseshoe Falls are the bigger of the two and the one that all the boats focus on. Because the Canadians obviously have the better falls...

Anyhoo, here is me in my snazzy red mist poncho waiting to get on the boat. I should mention that it was already pushing 30 degrees at this point (about 11am) so those plastic ponchos are like being in a greenhouse.

Fortunately, almost as soon as the boat sets off, you get attacked by spray and mist, so all is good. Here we are in the mist at the base of the falls.

Hard to get a sense of scale on that, so here's one I took from the top later in the day with another of the boats for scale.

And here's American Falls looking stunning.

I spent about an hour after that sitting in the cafe behind the dock, people watching. Most relaxing after spending so long standing in the queue myself. Nicely chilled and rehydrated, I headed a bit further along towards the falls to re-visit another attraction, the "Journey Behind the Falls". Basically, when the town was first building up, someone thought it would be a great idea to dig a tunnel so that you could see the falls from behind. Turned out to be awesome, although the original tunnel now opens out into a viewing deck next to the falls because the river has eroded so far back in the 100+ years since the tunnel was built.

Pretty awesome being able to stand that close to such a huge torrent of water. Anyway, they've dug some more tunnels since then, so you can still go in and see the back of the falls. Not that there's much to see.

Nice wall of white you've got there. The noise is incredible though, and hey, I had to show off the snazzy yellow poncho I got to replace the red one from the boat. I totally have not kept the yellow poncho. Nope. Definitely not...

Having somehow managed not to get too soggy, I made my way back to the surface and further along the river away from the crowds. Found myself a nice peaceful spot to have lunch.

Right next to the first Canadian owned hydro-electric plant on the river. It looks like a stately home. They should open it as a museum or something - I'd love to see inside there.

After the hour or so walk back to the hostel and a leisurely tea, I headed north out of the hostel to see if I could find the whirlpool area of the river. Which I did, but the undergrowth next to the path is so thick it's hard to get a good view. And no, I was not willing to pay nearly $20 to take a ride on the Aero Car which would've given me a great view. Niagara is expensive and I figured I'd already spent enough for the day on the boat and the tunnels.

You can still just about make out the whirlpool in the bottom left. Plus the walk was lovely. Following the walk up to the whirlpool, I grabbed my Gorillapod from the hostel and headed back into town. Both falls are lit up every night and I wanted to see if I could get some good shots. I succeeded.

I'm so proud of that photo. I think it's probably my favourite of the trip so far. Shows what I can do when I actually think about the settings on my camera instead of just pointing and clicking.

Overall, I think I made the most of my one day at Niagara!

Relaxation? What's that?

Good job I did, because the next morning I had to get a horribly early bus to my next destination. I still don't remember why I booked such an early bus. Maybe it was the cheapest? At any rate, I was back on the bus at 7:50am, a bus which was by some stroke of luck running on time despite having come across from the US and therefore presumeably having to stop at the border.

One change of buses (seriously, why did I book this bus? There are direct buses from Niagara to Hamilton...) and about 4 hours later (seriously?!) I arrived in the city of Hamilton, which is between Toronto and Niagara (and thus makes it ridiculous that I had to get a bus back to Toronto to then get another bus to Hamilton...)

It was much too warm in Hamilton and after such a long day in Niagara the day before, I decided I was going to relax. Which meant planning the next steps of my trip and freaking out about accommodation in Yellowstone. Fortunately I also decided to treat myself to some cheap donuts and Coke (I've pretty much just been drinking tea and water since June...). It is ridiculous how much joy I got from that.

My travel brain is guilt tripping me

Having had a look at what there is in Hamilton, I've decided to take my dad's advice and use the couple of days I have here to just chill out for a bit. I couldn't stop entirely though, because for some reason my brain likes to make me feel guilty if I just sit around for a few hours doing nothing travel related. So yesterday I visited Dundurn Castle in the afternoon having spent the morning catching up with random bits of news and finishing a book. And writing most of this post.

Dundurn Castle is, I suspect, one of the oldest surviving buildings in Hamilton. It was completed in 1835 and was, at the time, the largest home in the city. It's not a castle. It's more like a stately home.

Harold had to dive in there and hide the annoying crowd of people in the corner. Anyway, it's certainly trying to be stately. The interiors have been restored to what they would have been like in 1855, which means fancy wallpaper and plush furnishings upstairs.

I was more interested in the downstairs areas and that's totally nothing to do with the free food on offer down there... Definitely not.

So many preserves! And there were nice fresh veggies on offer in the kitchen for dunking. And pickled beetroot (which is one of my favouritest things, oddly). I discovered kohlrabi is actually quite nice. Mm. Hey, I'm on a budget - I'm not going to turn down free food, even if it is just nibbles.

After my guided tour of the house I went to check out the kitchen garden, which is absolutely beautiful but made me really miss my own garden, so I had to run away.

I finished my visit with a quick trip to the Hamilton Military Museum. Fascinating little place and I really wish I'd spent more time there. As it is, I rather rushed round. Ah well.

At least with my urge to explore satisfied for a while, I managed to spend the rest of the day chilling out at the hostel.

I'm on a boat!

Today, on my final full day in Hamilton, I have once again failed to do nothing all day. Instead, I had a lazy morning and then went down to the bay to explore HMCS Haida. Haida's the last surviving Tribal-class destroyer out of the original 27 built. She saw service in the Second World War and then again in Korea.

It cost me less than $4 and you get to see pretty much the entire ship, including the engine room which just had way too many things I wanted to touch...

Fortunately I resisted the urge to work out how to make it go (which clearly wouldn't have worked even if I'd tried...). On my walk home I spotted this excellent sign outside a church.

I agree - it is too warm. I think I'm getting used to it though. It's pushing 30 degrees again in Hamilton today and yet I didn't feel too disgusting after walking around for an hour.

I am also making slow improvement on my social skills - staying in hostels helps, because you're almost guaranteed to end up talking to one of your fellow guests. This is great, because it means I now have even more suggestions of things to see and do on my trip. Hurrah!

I've also been taking part in Camp NaNoWriMo again this month and I've taken these last couple of days as an added bonus to get more writing done. I wanted to see whether I would have the time to take part in the main NaNoWriMo event come November. Well, I've written over 25,000 words so far without even trying too hard, so I'll take that as a yes. Roll on November and yet another attempt to "overachieve" - that is, to write more than the 50,000 word standard goal.

Yes, I have weird life goals. I don't care.

Anyway, on Saturday I'll be boarding a train bound for Winnipeg. I'll arrive there on Monday, spend a few days recovering and exploring, before re-boarding the train to Edmonton. After another few days there, I'll get back on the train for a final time to take me to Vancouver.

That makes it sound like my Canadian adventure is coming to an end. No worries - I've got until the end of August yet!