Canada: Three idiots in an RV part 2

Wow, the schedule I'd somehow been managing to keep for the last 2 and a bit months appears to have gone a bit wonky. No worries. Ever onwards and all that.

So, having driven from Vancouver to Jasper, via Whistler and a number of other places, my second week with Mum and Amy in the RV began with a celebration, because guess what, it was my birthday.

Happy Birthday To Me

Birthday fun began with a trip to the Other Paw Bakery in Jasper, which I'd visited on my brief stop in Jasper on my way across on the train. Birthday cake consisted of a big chunk of Java Cheesecake Brownie and it was delicious. Om nom nom.

Cake hastily nommed, we set off for our next adrenaline fix - rafting down the Athabasca River. I've never been rafting before. I need to go again.

Who knew bobbing down a river, paddling through rapids and getting soaked by (once again) glacial water could be so much fun? Delightful adrenaline rush, discounting the fact that Jhett, our guide, on hearing that it was my birthday decided to find a special birthday wave for me. Cue getting thoroughly soaked again.

Once back on dry land and back into dry clothes, we headed to the Bear's Paw Bakery, forerunner of the Other Paw and home to equally delicious baked goods. Oh, and London Fog, to which I've taken quite a liking. Following that and a stroll around the tat shops of Jasper - and there are many - we popped into the Jasper Brewhouse for a birthday meal and I finally got my hands on a glass of cider for the first time in over 2 months.

Joy.

Then off back to the campground, where Mum and I had afters in the form of bannock - a sort of scone-mix wrapped around a stick and cooked over a fire, while the Wildlife Guardians from Parks Canada told us how to stay safe around wildlife.

What a lovely day.

Ah, un ours

The following day we set out for a long drive down the Icefields Parkway from Jasper to Lake Louise. It should have been fairly uneventful, but just after we pulled out of the campground onto the main road, a grizzly bear ran out in front of us.

I feel I should mention that said bear was nowhere near actually getting hit by the RV. But while I was happily going "WE SAW A BEAR!" and trying to decide which species it was, Amy was clinging to the steering wheel for grim death and apparently felt a bit sick. Understandable, I suppose.

Unfortunately, the bear rather having taken us by surprise, I have no photographic evidence. This is rather annoying.

Onwards down the lumpy bumpy Icefields Parkway. Which we had to pull off not far down because the right hand wing mirror had wiggled itself loose and was now absolutely no use to Amy in the driving seat. Wiggled it back, set off again, and it wiggled loose. Again. Buggeration.

On the plus side, there are some stunning views down the Parkway. I had to giggle at this one, purely because the mountain is apparently callled Mushroom Peak.

Further on, and with a still-non-functional wing mirror, we pulled in at the Icefields Centre to take a break and admire the Athabasca Glacier across the road. We briefly considered taking one of the bus trips to actually go on the glacier, but it was a) expensive, b) crammed and c) there are better places to get up close to a glacier (*cough* New Zealand *cough*). Instead, we settled for a hot drink and a seat out on the observation deck.

On the way out, we found this excellent sign.

Apparently there is a mountain behind the centre called Nigel. We found this overly amusing. Anyways...

Pootling on down the Parkway, we had another stop at the Crossing, where the Sasketchewan River passes under the road and where Mum and Amy tried poutine. Pretty sure the poutine there was not as good as the poutine I had in Quebec - the cheese curds weren't right.

And onwards with the driving, stopping again when we came to the Weeping Wall. I suppose it's a waterfall, but it really does look like the wall is crying.

And still onwards. Long drive, much. We started passing a few more icefields, one of which I couldn't find a name for on the map, so we christened it Bobstevedave, because we couldn't agree. Of course, once we pulled in at the Bow Glacier and looked at the map there, we found that Bobstevedave, or the Bobster as it'd swiftly become known, was actually the Crowfoot Glacier. Ah well.

Shortly after that we arrived into Lake Louise, successfully negotiated the texas gates (cattle grids to us Brits), and parked up. It was still fairly early, so we popped into the village to grab some groceries and explore the visitor centre. All good, until on the way back we passed a ranger near the camp entrance, shouting "Woah, bear" and firing what we think was an air gun. Probably walked back to the RV a bit quicker after that...

Snow in August?

It rained all night. It was still raining in the morning. Not to be deterred, we drove up to the Lake Louise gondola and ski resort, thinking it might clear up. Plus, for an extra $3 on top of the gondola ticket, we got breakfast. And not just a drink and choice of pastry. Proper buffet breakfast. Which meant I was a pig and had waffles and bacon and sausages and eggs and syrup and tater tots. And just to make it marginally less unhealthly, a cup of chamomile tea. Yum.

After breakfast, we took the gondola up the Whitehorn mountain. We had wanted to take the chairlift, but it was still damp and horrible, so we thought better of it.

Good job as well, because when we got to the top of the lift, it was snowing. Yes, snowing. In August. In the northern hemisphere. And not nice fluffy snow either. The sort of sharp icy stuff. It's that bloody Storm again. As I said to Amy, it's like Taranaki all over again, where an icy rainstorm followed us into Mordor...

Yeah... explanation of that here: The Weather Stabbed Me In The Face

We sought refuge in the little interpretive centre, which was interesting, if a bit small.

And then tramped upstairs to grab a hot drink and attempt to admire the view out of the window. Clearly not many people were willing to brave the lift, because as we walked through the door, one of the waiters came over and said something along the lines of "yay, customers!" Made me smile.

As did the hot chocolate. Not so much the view...

And then back down the gondola and across to Lake Louise proper. As in the lake itself, not the village.

Even in the appalling weather, it manages to be pretty. A surreal sort of green colour. We weren't willing to stay outside in the cold and the drizzle very long though, and disappeared into the Chateau Lake Louise hotel in search of warmth. Definitely warm. Also full of fellow tourists. Another hot drink and roam through the shops later and we headed back outside.

At this point, the weather was beginning to improve and after a little while sitting around at the campground in the RV, we decided to brave the outdoors again. Took a nice stroll out to the end of the campground, where you could see the mountaintops just beginning to poke out from beneath the clouds.

Very peaceful.

And then something coughed.

Or maybe snorted.

And we turned almost as one to find a fucking big bear standing on the bank behind us. "It's OK," says Mum, "just stay calm and keep walking." So we do. And I don't dare look behind me to see where the bear has gone, even though I really want to know where it is in case it's creeping up behind me or something. "It's all right," Mum says, "it's gone away." And indeed, it did go running off into the other side of the campground. Away from us.

At this point, all my brain wants to do is laugh hysterically. So it does. A bit. Amy looks like she did the day before when the other bear ran in front of the RV.

I love wildlife and everything, but I'd rather not be that close to a bear again without something between us.

If they can get a bus up here...

After our close encounter with the bear, we started the following day with a slow drive up to Moraine Lake. Supposedly, this lake is even more awesome than Lake Louise. To be fair, Lake Louise wasn't perhaps at its best due to the rain and everything, but Moraine Lake is definitely beautiful. Of the many colourful lakes we saw on this trip, I think Moraine is the only one where my camera actually captured the colour I saw.

Brilliant, bright blue. I've never seen a natural water body that colour.

My admiration of the lake was somewhat marred by all the idiot tourists trampling over the rockfall which dams the lake. There are signs everywhere asking you to stay on the trail, but who cares? I want to take a photo for Facebook/Instagram/insert self-absorbed-social-media-here. What do you mean these lichens take hundreds of years to grow? They're just plants. Sensitive ecosystem? What's that?

Basically, I spent most of my time on that rockfall grumbling under my breath about how I hoped they'd all fall and hurt themselves and it'd serve them damn well right. People have no respect for nature.

/rant

Oh, and I saw a pika. These are basically just cute little balls of fluff. Clever little fluffballs - they gather plants and store them in a sort of pantry for the winter.

After a leisurely morning at the lake, we set off on our drive to that evening's campground. Plenty of time for other stops though, including a drive up to Takakkaw Falls at the end of the Yoho Valley Road. Said road involves a set of switchbacks that are much too tight to get an RV round in one go. Amy had to reverse into the bend in order to get round them. As we found later, there are actually coach trips up this road, so we figured if they can get the buses up there, an RV shouldn't be too much of a problem.

It was worth the farting about, because the falls really live up to their name - Takakkaw translates to something like "it is magnificent" in Cree.

And the view back down the valley towards Kicking Horse Pass is equally spectacular.

After successfully returning down the switchbacks, we carried on a little way down the road to the railway settlement of Field. Field only exists because of the railway - the incline through Kicking Horse Pass is pretty damn steep and was even steeper in the early days, so Field existed only as a place to add extra locomotives to trains climbing the pass.

It's not that much bigger now, although it does have a visitor information centre and a little gas station where we grabbed some lunch (which showed up as JUNKFOOD on the register. I was amused).

From there, a fairly straightforward drive out of Yoho National Park to the town of Golden. Straightforward apart from the very long, winding hill which drops out of the park towards the town There were a group of bighorn sheep (we think) at the side of the road, which managed to freak Amy out only because I shouted GOAT on seeing them. My bad.

Golden's only a tiny place, but the campground was lovely and the sunset behind the mountains... well...

My feet have gone soft

After a delicious second breakfast in a bakery in Golden and having tightened up the still wiggly wing mirror with an allen key we'd had to buy in Golden (because the RV came with no toolkit?!), we set off for a slow drive down the Columbia River Valley.

Perhaps the most relaxing day we've had, given that it was a relatively short drive and once we got to Radium Hot Springs, we had no real plans for the day. Mooched around for a while, grabbing a cup of tea followed by a lovely ice cream, before we drove up to the campground and parked.

A little while to just chill out and then we took the 2.5km track over the hill to the hot springs from which the town takes its name. Admittedly, the water from the springs is now channelled into a swimming pool, but it felt pretty good after the walk in the heat.

The only downside to a relaxing soak in the pool was that my feet, hardened by two months of tramping around cities and parks and museums and stuff, got a bit soft and therefore the walk back to camp was a bit... tender. I think I got off fairly easily - Amy really seemed to be struggling with the squishy feet situation.

The Storm is coming

Another fairly leisurely day, driving up through Kootenay National Park from Radium to Banff.

The road crosses three mountain chains and two rivers, so it was pretty expensive to build back in the early 20th Century. We stopped at the info centre for a drink and then headed back up the road. At which point I noticed the big black cloud further up the valley.

Oh dear.

We'd thought about stopping at the Paint Pots - ochre-stained lakes, very cool - and then maybe taking the trail up to the Stanley Glacier. With the Storm apparently intent on making another appearance, I looked at the map again and suggested stopping at Numa Falls, in an attempt to at least see something before the rain came down.

Glad we did. Numa Falls is pretty, well, pretty.

Even if Amy did worry that I'd fallen in at one point, because I'd gone wandering off to take photos and she couldn't see me.

Back in the RV, we entered the very edge of the rain, passed the Paint Pots turn off just as the rain stopped (much to my annoyance) and instead pulled in at Marble Canyon. On reading the first information board, I had to suppress the little voice in my head that was geeking out massively.

See, back up near Field is the Burgess Shale, a fossil bearing rock which includes evidence from around the time of the Cambrian Explosion - the period in which life sort of went a bit mad and all sorts of things were evolving. A couple of years back, scientists found another outcropping of this rock in the vicinity of Marble Canyon and the info board included a note to say that any fossils found should be left and reported to the Parks service (or something along those lines).

Yes, the science geek in me was squeeing over the super faint possibility of finding a fossil. Oh yeah.

As it is, Marble Canyon is pretty impressive in and of itself. It's very narrow and not all that deep, but it's beautiful. And, there's a waterfall at the top end.

And, there's a great view from the top, as Mum and I discovered while making friends with a chipmunk.

From Marble Canyon we headed straight to Banff, where we spent the afternoon raiding tat shops (again) and I found myself an excellent t-shirt.

I've got the la-la horse

The following morning, we went horse riding. My horse, Red, did mostly what he was supposed to do and left off eating things when I told him (i.e., pulling on the reins).

Mum's horse, Dunny, seemed like he was still half asleep.

And Amy's horse, the wonderfully named Soupy Jones... well, he did what he was told to start with...

So there we are, tramping along, occasionally having to pull our horses away from tasty things or trees that they felt like smacking us into. Enjoying the view and the peace. We make it across the Spray River, through the wood at the edge of the golf course. Soupy begins trying to eat whatever he can get his mouth on, despite Amy doing everything the guides are telling her.

And then we come back to the river. Dunny decides to stop in the middle of the river and have a drink. We've been told that the horses get a bit possessive about their place in the line, so if one stops to drink, everyone behind has to stop too.

Soupy has no intention of stopping. As I'm trying to tell Amy she needs to pull back and make him stop, Soupy is blithely tromping past the oblivious Dunny to take his place in the line.

For a moment, Mum is seriously concerned that Dunny's going to flip. Fortunately he doesn't. All the while, Red's just tramping along with the same look on his face that Mum's younger dog gets when he's having a la-la far away moment. All fine by me. At least my horse was behaving.

Meanwhile, not content with his new spot in the line, Soupy has decided that he really wants his lunch. Which means we all have to keep stopping while Amy tries in vain to drag him away from whatever's taken his fancy. Poor Amy.

Which means that when a deer appears right next to the trail and seems completely unfazed by the gaggle of amateurs riding past, Amy misses it at first while we're all going WOW, because she's trying to drag Soupy away from a bunch of delicious thistles.

Fortunately we all made it back in one piece. Hurrah. I love riding. I'll have to find other places to go.

After our little equine adventure, we popped up to the Cave & Basin National Historic Site. This is where the National Park system really started - workers from the railway stumbled upon the cave, which had actually been used by the local indigenous people for centuries, and started marketing it. The government got in on it, bought the site and the first National Park in Canada grew up around it.

Woo, potted history. The site is quite interesting in itself, like the delightfully smelly cave.

And the cafe does some really yummy cakes.

And then another raid of the tat shops before having tea in the Elk & Oarsman. Yummy elk burger and cider for me. Mmm.

Which brings me almost to the end of my Rockies adventure with Mum and Amy. Just 2 more days remained in Canada. Wow.

I wonder how Alaska will compare?

Canada: Three idiots in an RV part 1

I'm back! And alive. And in Alaska. If you've been wondering where the blog's been, apologies for the radio silence over the past couple of weeks - I was in an RV for most of it with seriously limited Wi-Fi. Recap follows below. I've split it into two parts, just because a lot has happened and I don't want to just give you text wall.

So, you know how I've been travelling mostly solo for the last 2 months? For the last two weeks, I've had the joy of road tripping with my mum and sister. This is a slightly odd thing for my brain to deal with, but the first week has turned out wonderfully.

If in doubt, Tim Hortons

I think I left the last post at the point of going to retrieve Mum and Amy from the airport. Turns out the flight was delayed nearly an hour, so I pulled my usual and had a bagel and cuppa from Tim Hortons while I waited. They turned up eventually and then it was off to the city to check in to the hotel.

A hotel! I've been staying in hostels for the last 2 months (give or take an AirBnB and emergency hotel), so this was pretty nice. Not the absolute swishest of places, but they did have toiletries that I could filch. Hurrah. Oh, and this view out over the city.

Mum and Amy were fighting the jet lag, so we went for a walk down to the bay, where we found a very nice Chinese restaurant for tea. We were the only non-Chinese people in there. I take this as a sign that it's proper Chinese food. It was delicious, but expensive. Ah well.

Be Our Guest

We made up for the expensive tea the following morning by visiting Tim Hortons for breakfast. And to think I'd been doing so well about resisting the call of the Tims...

Anyway, the morning continued with a trip to Granville Island Market, which was pretty cool. Grabbed some delicious reasonably priced fruit and then set off for a walk around the sea wall.

Which involved getting a ferry, of which no photos, for some reason. Anyways, the sea wall was lovely and warm with a nice breeze and this random inukshuk...

Then off into Stanley Park, but not before we bumped into a family of raccoons. So cute.

Stanley Park is a little bit huge, but mostly forested, so it made for a gorgeously cool walk after the heat out in the open. There may have been some giggles about bears, to which Amy's response was to sing the Winnie the Pooh song. On repeat. For ages.

After a lovely afternoon strolling around the park, we popped back to the hotel and then had tea at the White Spot Diner (most delicious) before heading back to the park to see a production of Beauty and the Beast. Great show. Even better for being outside in lovely weather.

Jurassic Goat

The following morning we boarded a free bus up to Capilano Suspension Bridge on the northern side of Vancouver. Yay, free things. Plus, I got discount at the bridge because I have HI membership - see, perks of staying in hostels.

Anyhoos, the Capilano Suspension Bridge is just a bridge across a ravine. It also happens to be very wobbly. And sort of bouncy. And has the delightful ability to freak people out without even trying. Unless you're not really bothered about heights or wobbly bridges, like me, in which case it's just fun watching everyone else freak out and pull funny faces with every wibble.

The complex also includes a tree top walk, somewhat dampened by the fairly large number of people using it. The walk through the forest is pretty cool though and I have to mention the owls, because OWLS.

Following a leisurely wander around the bridge complex, we hopped onto a public bus (oh my) up the road to Grouse Mountain. More entry fees, but easily made up for by everything on offer on the mountain. We took in a guided walk with one of the rangers, a ride up the chairlift to the top of the mountain, a most amusing lumberjack show and a glimpse of the mountain's two captive grizzly bears.

Great fun. Especially when the chairlift inexplicably stopped while we were hanging just outside the bear enclosure. I may have joked that we were like the goat in Jurassic Park... just hanging there... waiting to lure the bears out...

As mentioned above, the lumberjack show was also awesome. Bizarre, but awesome. See photo of two men trying to balance on a log while trying to knock the other off...

After coming back down the mountain, we were told that the free shuttle bus back to the city was buggered up and we'd have to get another public bus instead. Cue Mum giving me all her change because I had none and then a ridiculously long time stuck on a bus in traffic in Vancouver's boiling heat. Nice.

Amy decided we should rectify our resulting bad moods with a trip to Tim Horton's for tea. And of course no one objected.

His name is Wes

On Monday morning we took a super long taxi ride out to Delta, south of Vancouver, to pick up the RV. After some wrangling because we'd turned up earlier than the company wanted (not our fault), we finallly got on the road.

Sort of. So, Mum's driving along a bit stressed because she's driving an automatic, on the wrong side of the road and it's a whole lot bigger than anything she's used to driving. I'm grumbling about the map and directions I've got to work from. They are shit. Super shit. And as a result, we ended up going in entirely the wrong direction and nearly ended up getting on the ferry to Victoria... or Nanaimo... or something.

Oops.

Anyways, we sorted it out, after a few minutes of me thinking I was going to get dumped at the side of the road for getting the directions so badly wrong. This is still bugging me, because usually I'm pretty bloody good with navigation. How annoying.

Safely back on the right track, we finally made it to Whistler, where I discovered the RV's name was Wes (reg plate 145 WES, so definitely a Wes) and we headed straight into town to find our activity for the evening.

Ziplining.

Oh yes. This sounded like great fun to me. Amy didn't seem entirely convinced. 5 lines through the forest above Whistler, with tales including a cougar eating a fresh kill on one of the landing platforms during one trip. Fortunately we didn't run into any cougars or other delightful wildlife. Unfortunately, none of us took a camera, so I am limited to sharing these glorious shots with you which were taken by one of the staff.

Aren't we graceful? I was trying to turn myself upside down there, but couldn't quite convince myself to let go of the strap.

Following our little adrenaline fix, we headed back to the campsite for the evening where a friendly Canadian chap kindly parked Wes for us after watching Mum deliberate for a while. Yay, friendly Canadians.

Wes is trying to kill us...

Day two in the RV began with Amy taking a turn at the wheel. This meant a leisurely drive through the coastal mountains and on into the almost desert like region beyond. What should have been an uneventful drive was first interrupted by the carbon monoxide alarm going off. This resulted in Mum throwing herself across the RV as she tried to open windows while Amy pootled down the road. Wes, we decided, was trying to kill us.

It was also interrupted by Wes's complete inability to maintain revs going down hills. Which resulted in stalling. I thought it was pretty much impossible to stall an automatic, but between Mum and Amy, Wes stalled quite a few times during our first few days.

Anyways, we managed a stop at lovely Marble Canyon just for a few minutes to recover from the madness. I geeked out slightly because they have stromatolite-like microbial formations in the lake. This is awesome.

It was, however, approaching TOO HOT. Which only got worse when we finally got to Juniper Beach Provincial Park, our stop for the night. We spent the afternoon lazing around in the sunshine, too warm to do anything and Amy actually went and stuck her feet in the river.

This would become a recurring theme...

Why have you stopped paddling?!

Day three should have been fairly uneventful. Get in the RV. Drive to Kamloops. Get groceries. Drive to Clearwater. Park RV. Explore.

Which is pretty much how it went until the directions GoogleMaps had produced for Mum tried to send us down a dirt track. A good 20km or so from the campsite. Amy niftily turned the RV round and we pootled off back the way we came.

Fortunately, once in Clearwater (which is on the main highway, so god knows why the directions sent us so far wrong), the site was easy to find. We grabbed lunch at the Painted Turtle restaurant on the site where I finally got round to trying London Fog. This is pretty much like a latte, only with Earl Grey tea instead of coffee. It is delicious. Plus, look at the view from our table.

After lunch had chance to settle, we hired a canoe for an hour of paddling out on Dutch Lake, on which shores the site sat. This began as a sort of leisurely meander, Amy and I doing the paddling, Mum being chief photographer.

It was great fun. Until we turned to head back to the dock and realised that the wind was determined to blow us back the way we'd come. Hilarity ensued as Mum took over paddling from Amy and then Amy took over paddling from me. Mum was in the Sea Cadets and had a bit more idea what she was doing, so she got to be captain. I think we might have still been paddling round the lake if it had just been me and Amy...

That evening, Amy decided to stick her feet into the lake while I took photos of the moon being pretty. It really was a gorgeous moonrise.

The glacier-fed lake was icy cold!

Day four in the RV began with a drive to the tiny settlement of Valemount where we grabbed a delicious bite to eat at Don's Social House, a little diner just off the highway.

From there it was just a short drive up to Mount Robson Provincial Park and our campsite. Having arrived so early, we decided to take the trail up to Kinney Lake at the feet of Mount Robson. We were rather under-prepared. Amy decided to sing Be Our Guest in order to either stop her feet hurting or to scare the bears away. The 4.2km "easy" track climbed quite steeply in places. It was too hot.

In the end, we did reach the lake, which was a beautiful cloudy blue-green thanks to the large amounts of rock flour - very tiny rock particles - suspended in it.

There wasn't a suitable place for Amy to stick her feet in the river flowing down from the lake, so we all stuck our hands in it instead. It was icy cold, as can only be expected from a glacier fed river.

After a long trek down from the lake, we spent another evening enjoying the peace and quiet at the campsite.

Idiots abroad

The end of my first week with Mum and Amy began with a gentle drive from British Columbia into Alberta, with a first stop at Moose Lake.

Again, Amy discovered that glacier fed systems are icy cold, but put her feet in it anyway. Mum made friends with a dog called Louie. And then we toddled off over the provincial border, past the town of Jasper and on up a winding road to Maligne Lake. This entailed negotiating the crowd of parked cars and associated idiots who had near enough blocked the road part way up. On a bend.

I have no idea what they were gawping at. Probably a bear or moose. Neither of which they should have been so close to. Anyways, we eventually made it up to the lake, grabbed a delicious and reasonably priced lunch from the cafe and then set off to visit our second Moose Lake of the day.

Amy did not stick her feet in this one. I think we may all have been slightly worried about bears.

And then back down to Maligne Lake, which is a beautiful bright blue-green.

Gorgeous. Took a walk round another of the marked trails, although this one seemed to go on for much longer than the map suggested and we started wondering if we'd gone the wrong way. Fortunately, Wes finally loomed into view in the car park and it was off to the campsite and the associated bear warnings. We were starting to get used to them...

Well, that covers week one of my adventure with Mum and Amy. Week two should be posted shortly. Just as soon as my brain wakes up again. 5am start to catch a plane this morning is not agreeing with me.

Ziplines and canoes and hiking! Hurrah!

Canada: Far over the [Misty] Mountains cold...

Wow. This was my final week of solo travel in Canada. By the time this is posted, I'll have retrieved my mum and sister from the airport for a 2 week road trip through the Rockies.

Anyway, that's for next week. Let's have a look at what I've been doing this week, shall we?

Tiny winged demons

While I did technically have a full day in Edmonton the day I arrived, I wasted that being tired and lethargic. So Saturday, my first non-knackered day in the city, I decided to go for a wander down to the river I'd seen on the way to the hostel.

This is the North Saskatchewan River. It's... quite big. On the southern side, where I was staying, there's a whole series of parks along the bank with plenty of trails, so I took a nice two hour stroll through there. Some really gorgeous views.

The only slight drawback of wandering through woods near a big river was the inevitable attack by tiny winged demons. Usually known as gnats/midges/mozzies. I don't know which ones they were. The important thing is I hadn't even thought about putting on insect repellent and as a result had grown an extra elbow by the following morning, alongside an assortment of other bite-induced lumps. Yay.

The hostel had advertised the evening as "Wine and Cheese Night". So I figured I'd filch myself some free cheese and maybe a glass of wine. There was no cheese left when I popped in about 10 minutes after the advertised start. There was wine.

My Slovenian roommate pulled a face and said it tasted more like sangria and I'm inclined to agree. Not complaining - first alcohol since I left the UK and free to boot. It went all right with my linguine.

Attack of the muse

The annoying gnat bites may go some way towards explaining why I was rather less inclined to go exploring on Sunday. Well, that and the fact that my writing muse suddenly decided to wake up again after taking a week off after Camp NaNoWriMo. 

Instead of exploring I ended up writing several thousand words about the languages in the fictional universe I'm working in at the moment.

Yeah. And then when I did finally decide to go and have a look around Strathcona, the lovely old area around the hostel, I ended up in a second hand bookshop and had to escort myself back to the hostel before I spent ALL THE MONEY. I did get a Terry Pratchett book out of it though...

And then I wrote some more.

Write All The Words

Yeah, so Monday ended up being much the same as Sunday with the added bonus of possibly solving my Seattle-West Yellowstone transport problem. Hurrah.

I think I wrote about 5000 words. This is a lot of words. Most of them were rubbish, but at least my brain is back in writing mode. I like my brain in writing mode. It's more fun.

I managed another short exploratory foray into Strathcona, where I discovered that some of the pedestrian crossings are rainbows.

My brain made some sort of Mario Kart Rainbow Road reference. It wasn't all that funny, because my brain is not good at making the funnies.

Reasoning that I'd want an early night because of the horrible 7:37am train the next day, I turned in far earlier than usual, failed to get to sleep until after midnight because my brain is a bitch and then was rudely awoken at 4am by the return of...

The Mother of All Storms

For those who missed out on the New Zealand expedition madness, the Mother of All Storms, also known simply as The Storm, was a massive thunderstorm which followed us around the South Island for a few days with scary ass lightning and the loudest thunder I've ever heard. I'm sure the same storm has started following me across Canada, starting in Ottawa (or possibly even Montreal), getting worse in Winnipeg and now Edmonton...

Well, I'm pretty sure lightning struck the street outside the hostel. The gap between the flash of lightning and the thunder going BOOM (seriously, BOOM, not rumble rumble. BOOM) was pretty much non-existent. So I didn't really get much sleep. Fun times.

I hate that storm.

At least that meant I was awake in plenty of time to get my taxi back to the station. The train arrived nearly on time and then I was off on my way to Vancouver, via the Rockies. A bit of a damp morning, but then we hit the mountains and it was beautiful.

I couldn't resist putting the Lord of the Rings soundtracks on as the scenery slid past the windows. I can't wait until I get to explore the mountains in the next couple of weeks.

Only stop of the day was at the tourist hub of Jasper, which is a pretty little place. The train got cleaned out there, so I had an hour to wander round and find an awesome bakery where I found myself some cakey goodness. I would have taken a photo of it, but I was seriously craving sweetness, so I ate it before I had a chance. It was a Nanaimo Square and most scrumptious.

Also in Jasper, I noted that they'd added a third locomotive to the front of the train. Given that there were already two up there to get us to Jasper, I figured this meant we'd be doing quite a lot of climbing and descending on our way to Vancouver.

Unfortunately, I turned round from geeking about the locos to find The Storm bearing down on us again.

About 10 minutes after I took that photo, while we were all milling about waiting to get on the train, The Storm arrived. Rarely have I seen such big raindrops. The crew weren't quite ready to let us board, but with the rain coming down hard, they decided not to wait and there was a bit of a free for all. Suffice to say, by the time I got onto the train, I was soaked.

And then, on top of being sodden, I had to move because some pathetic couple just couldn't bear to sit separately for a few hours. I would probably not have been so pissed off about this if I hadn't been a) soaked and b) operating on about 4 hours sleep. I wouldn't have minded sharing the two seater I'd claimed on boarding at Edmonton, but being made to move rankled.

So I migrated to the cafe car instead, along with a whole bunch of other people who'd had to move to accommodate groups and pairs. We ended up having an impromptu music session courtesy of Catarina from Australia and John from Canada, who kept us entertained with a whole assortment of songs for a good two or three hours.

In the meantime, some wonderful things were going past the windows, but courtesy of the lights reflecting in the windows, I don't have many good photos. This is one of the better ones.

I hung around in the cafe car until about 10pm, staying awake through the consumption of large cups of tea and the residual effects of my sugar-rich deliciousness from Jasper. Which meant I got to see the moon looking pretty over the mountains, although my photo does not do it justice.

And then time for sleep. Well. It should have been time for sleep. You try sleeping next to a both quite tall and rather broad gentleman (lovely guy, but oh my god, the man-spreading) and across from a guy who snored all night. You know how most peoeple, when they snore, do so for a little while and then sort of snort a bit and stop? Yeah. This guy didn't. He just snored. All. Fucking. Night. Man-spreading dude I could deal with because I'm little and the seats are quite big. Snoring man, not so much. I was very close to clubbing him over the head with a walking boot.

Sleep? What sleep?

Suffice to say, I was not in the best of moods when I woke up from another small doze at 6am. I retreated once again to the cafe car, downed another cup of tea and tried to think happy thoughts. This is remarkably hard when you've had about 8 hours sleep in the last 48.

Fortunately, the scenery was still busy being pretty. Reminded me quite a bit of Canterbury in New Zealand - probably to do with the big plain surrounded by mountains.

And then into Vancouver. Finally. This means I've near enough gone from one coast of Canada to the other, if we ignore the fact that I didn't get to Newfoundland. I am rather pleased about this.

Unfortunately, my lack of sleep may have triggered the weird anxiety I get about crowds, which meant waiting to pick up my bag at the station was hell for the 5 minutes I managed before running away to a quieter waiting area for a bit. And I'd been doing so well with crowds so far. How annoying.

On the other hand, the hostel I'm staying at had provided excellent directions and the public transport system in Vancouver is (at that time at least) both efficient and quiet. No huge crowds waiting to freak me out. Hurrah.

I spent the rest of the day first exploring a bit of Jericho Park, which the hostel sits in...

And then sleeping. Because, oh my god, I needed it. And then I read my new Terry Pratchett book (the Discworld Companion. Very good for a reference book) and then I slept some more.

Hurrah.

I'm sure there's a park around here somewhere...

Having had so much sleep the day before, Thursday was a rather more pleasant experience. First, I had a lovely (unhealthy) breakfast at the little cafe attached to the hostel.

It was basically a Full English, with a scone (called a biscuit for some reason...) instead of toast. And it was wonderful. However, I probably needed to do something about burning off all those calories, so I decided to go in search of the Pacific Spirit Regional Park, which Google reliably informed me was a mere half hour walk away.

So I toddled off up the hill, through the residential areas. And kept going. And kept going some more. And I think I found the park. Only, I couldn't find a way in (possibly just being my unobservant self) and I'd rather underestimated how warm it was. It had felt quite mild when I left the hostel, but by the time I got up to where the park was supposed to be, wearing jeans was turning out to be a bad move.

So I gave up and settled for coming back to the hostel and getting my laundry done. Thrilling.

No worries. I made up for my complete lack of activity by going down to the beach at sunset and enjoying the view. Definitely worth it, although my photos don't really do it justice. This is the view down the bay out towards the ocean.

And this is the Vancouver skyline, which looked awesome on the little screen on my camera, but sadly is rather less in focus when blown up.

And finally, the little cafe/restaurant on the waterfront.

I haven't seen nearly enough sunsets yet. I need more sunsets in my life.

Delayed...

As mentioned at the top, at the time this is posted, I should be retrieving my mum and sister from the airport. At the time of writing, the flight's delayed by nearly an hour. Which might mean me locating a cafe at the airport and drinking copious amounts of tea. We'll see.

In the next week, I'll be going on a motorhome road trip with Mum and Amy, from Vancouver up into the Rockies. Back into the [Misty] Mountains cold...

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.