Canada: Am I there yet?

I'm well over halfway through my Canadian adventure now. In fact, I now only have 3 weeks left here before I depart for Alaska. Anyway, the updates continue, so here's what's been going on this week.

Why are we reversing?

I spent much of Saturday being lazy, which was delightful - although I'd forgotten about how much time I lose hopping through links on Wikipedia when I have nothing better to do... Finally, around 6pm I left the fairly quiet city of Hamilton and hopped back on a bus to Toronto. Not because I was planning on staying in Toronto but because I had to get on a train.

Ah yes, the train. The evening's joys began with the guy in front of me at the ticket counter/check in desk, who completely flipped out at the clerk because he missed his train. Never mind the fact that he'd clearly turned up just as the train was leaving, he was adamant the clerk had made him miss his train. She called security while I tried not to smirk.

And then I had even more time to kill so went in search of food. Easier said than done because there was a carnival on in the afternoon and every single food place was heaving. Apart from Quiznos, so I ended up trying out their subs. Not bad.

At last and surprisingly on time, the train left Toronto at 10pm. I'm figuring I'll probably not sleep great (because I never do in transit) so settle for watching the scenery go by. Which is why I got very confused when about 30 minutes out of the station the train started reversing... for nearly 15 minutes. So confused (nearly as confused as I was just now when my tablet stopped picking up my keyboard properly...)

SWIMMING MOOSE

Anyway, we must have ended up going the right way in the end. I slept... not well, but a lot better than I expected. The morning was something of a non-event, given that I was stuck on a train (and would be for another 24 hours), but I did see some beautiful scenery and I'm pretty sure I saw a moose swimming. Here is the photo evidence.

Yes, it's appalling, but I was on a train and half asleep and the moose (or whatever it was) was swimming. I think I might also have seen some beaver dams, but they could have been just piles of stuff in streams for all I know. Sleep deprivation is not great for these things.

I spent much of my second day on the train gazing out of the window and reading. The train has a car with a panoramic dome on top, which was pretty cool for getting shots like this.

And I did at least get the chance to get off the train for a few minutes when we stopped at Hornepayne. Grabbed a few pictures of the locomotives and the train.

Big ass train. Not as big as the 125 car freighter that went past us while we were still at Hornepayne.

I was also pleased to discover that the snack bar had a decent selection of tea. In my sleep deprived fog I was so grateful for a cup of reasonable Darjeeling, it was ridiculous. And then I made another attempt at sleeping. This might have been sunset...

Caffiene. I need caffiene.

Or it might have been sunrise as we approached Winnipeg at an ungodly hour of the morning. I stumbled out of the station around 8am to find that August 1st is a public holiday and the bus I had planned on taking to my hostel wasn't running. I managed to locate a Starbucks though and pilfered the free WiFi for walking directions, backed up by the friendly coppers who mentioned that they'd never been in said hostel and that I should take that as a good thing. Nice guys.

At any rate, I made it to the hostel about 10am, having drunk an enormous cuppa in Starbucks and promptly gave up on any vague plans I had to make use of my day. Two nights on a train hadn't done anything for my energy levels, so I spent the day curled up reading. I felt somewhat more justified in my lethargy when a huge thunderstorm erupted over the city later in the day and carried on into the evening. I'm pretty sure The Storm which followed us around New Zealand a couple of years ago has caught up with me.

I'm on a boat! Again!

I spent the following day exploring the Manitoba Museum. A little bit dated in places, but more than made up for with some very awesome exhibits. Things like having a ship in the museum.

That is the Nonsuch, built in Appledore, Devon and then shipped across to Canada to commemorate one of the Hudson Bay Company's anniversaries. Mostly I just liked imagining it being filled with pirates even though that wasn't really its purpose. Overactive imagination strikes again.

There's also some very cool fossils and a great bit of geekery in the form of a section through the K-Pg boundary. This is the layer of rock which marks where the Cretaceous period ended and the Paleogene began. In itself, that doesn't sound very interesting and neither does the fact that the layer is rich in iridium. But consider that iridium is rare in the Earth's crust, which indicates an extraterrestrial origin, and it starts being more important. Rambling aside, the K-Pg boundary marks the impact of the asteroid (or possibly comet) that is generally accepted to have triggered the extinction of the dinosaurs. I got way too much joy from this tiny little brown band.

I also went in the planetarium, which was suitably trippy and made my head go funny. I fixed this by going in the science gallery next door and embracing my inner child. Interactive joy! Really silly things like making a very short stop motion film using a plastic dimetrodon and elephant. Well, I'm pretty sure it was a dimetrodon. I had one when I was little...

And then I found a great river bed model where you could position dams and trees to see how it affected the flow. Suffice to say I spent too much time playing with it and it was a good job there weren't any kids around. Especially when I got bored of doing the proper investigative stuff and decided to see how long it would take to overtop the dams. So I dammed both streams and waited and then had great joy in taking the dams out and watching the resulting flood.

I should have filmed it. My inner child was so happy.

And then I spent the evening chatting with one of the guys at the hostel. See, my social skills have definitely improved. I can hold a conversation with strangers now. Hostels are good for that.

So.Much.Food.

My final full day in Winnipeg I decided to check out the Forks, which was recommended by Renee who very kindly took me for Thai when I was in Hamilton. The Forks is a little area down behind the train station where the Red and Assiniboine Rivers meet.

[IMAGE]

There's some cool little shops and a whole variety of eating places. Much as I was tempted by the delicious smells coming from some of the international stalls, I eventually settled on the Original Pancake House. Seriously, I found it hard to resist the promise of bacon and maple syrup and pancakes. This is what I ended up having for lunch.

Two pancakes, two rashers of bacon, two beautifully done fried eggs, 2 rounds of toast and a heap of hash browns (fried potatoes). Plus, of course, maple syrup and whipped butter. I surprised myself by eating it all and then had to make sure I walked around for a good while afterwards to work some of it off. That wasn't too hard - there's a lovely park in the Forks.

Satisfied that I'd at least started to burn off my carb/sugar/fat laden lunch, I settled down on a bench and read for a while. I've started enjoying this - just finding a quiet place  to sit and read and watch the world go by. Very relaxing.

I would have walked up to Assiniboine Park after that but as soon as I got out of the shade it was way too warm and even more so by the time I'd got back to the hostel. I planned instead to head out later on and visit the Museum of Human Rights, since it would've been free that evening.

I ended up curling up with my book again and having random conversations with fellow hostellers. At about 7pm I tried to convince myself to move. It's a good job I failed, because not long after The Storm made a reappearance. Insane lightning storm carried on until after I'd gone to bed. So glad I didn't go out.

Tea Turbulence

Thursday morning I managed to drag myself out of bed at a respectable hour, make some sandwiches, pack my bag, empty the last of my box of 80 tea bags into my emergency tea tin and make it down to the station with nearly 2 hours until my train.

I needn't have worried so much about getting to the station in plenty of time. The train was in the station when I arrived, but we didn't leave until about half an hour after the scheduled departure. Not that I'm complaining - it could stay late for all I cared, given that it was due into Edmonton at 6:22am the next morning. Too early.

On and on, went the train. I had to turn my music up louder because the guy behind me was total looney tunes. Not a term I use often, but he really was. Kept rambling at the woman across from him about god and the devil and demons and how money is the root of evil. If it had been coherent, it might have been interesting. As it was, it was making me uncomfortable.

I rectified said discomfort with loud music (In This Moment is excellent for this) and a surprisingly reasonably priced cup of Darjeeling. Yum. Unfortunately about 10 minutes after I sat down with my cuppa, it leapt off its seat on the windowsill and launched itself at me. I have an ouchy knee as a result, but at least the lid kept most of the tea in the cup. Still, I dislike that I managed to lose tea.

My otherwise boring day was interrupted by the arrival of a couple of kids in my personal space. I have no idea why they decided to talk to me and anyone who knows me can tell you I'm not great with children, but I ended up spending most of the evening with them and their mum playing Uno of all things. A very pleasant surprise.

Oh, and I also saw some bison. No photos though - I was busy trying to remember how to play Uno!

The bus takes how long?!

After an almost comfortable night's sleep, I woke to the news that the train was running 2 and a half hours late due to all the freight traffic we'd encountered. No worries - I figured that meant more chance of finding an open Tim Horton's/Starbucks to filch free Wi-Fi from.

As it is, I found that Edmonton's train station is quite a long way out of the city centre, unlike Toronto and Winnipeg, and although there were public transport options available, they would have taken at least an hour so I ended up taking a cab to the hostel which took about 20 minutes. This is the first time I've taken a cab on my own. I was very proud of myself.

So now I'm planning on spending my day doing some more reading, replenishing my groceries and planning the US leg of the trip because, jeez, that's loomed up all of a sudden! I then have another 3 days to explore Edmonton before I get back on the train one last time to head for Vancouver.

Rocky Mountain scenery, here I come.

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!