THURSDAY, MAY 30th:

After an excellent night's sleep, during which we moved from Eastern Time to Atlantic Time and thus are only now four hours behind the time in  Britain, we woke up in New Brunswick near Campbellton. I had breakfast with Peter our tour leader and heard something of his interesting life story. Our route took us across the eastern part of the province through Bathurst, Miramichi, Rogersville, Moncton, Sackville, crossing into Nova Scotia a little after 2.00pm at Amherst. On then to Truro and finally Halifax about half an hour late at 5.50pm. Our lateness was exacerbated when the engines could not make manage to pull the Tain up a hill and lost traction. They had then to back back and then try it again with greater speed. I chatted en route with a 26 year old man from Jordan, Ontario, whose grandfather lives in Skipton, Yorkshire. Earlier in the month he had travelled outside Ontario for the first time, other than a trip to England. His train from Vancouver arrived in Toronto twelve hours late!

     After pulling into Halifax Station and having picked up our luggage, our minibus to the hotel was a stretched limousine. We all sat in Katherine round inside rather than in bus seats set out in rows. Our hotel was not very far away: the Four Points By Sheraton. Having settled in the room, we chatted on Skype with Robert's sister Betty and granddaughter Kiana in San Jose.

     Afterwards we walked down to the harbour side walkboard and found a place to eat at the Waterfront seafood restaurant. Also there was Ian from our group and we took his recommendation of seafood thermidor. It brought together shrimp, mussels, scallops, haddock, salmon  in a rich creamy sauce, all on a bed of pasta. It is very seldom that I can't manage to finish what is put before me, but this was one such occasion! It was excellent, but on the end over facing in quantity and richness! Our waiter was interesting. He is reading political science at St Mary's University here in Halifax, and has travelled quite widely playing the double bass in bands on cruise ships!

     And so we walked across the road and up the hill back to the hotel after another day of seeing beautiful scenery on our travels.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 29th:

This was our free day until the train leaves for Halifax, Nova Scotia tonight. We returned to Cafe Paillard for breakfast for croissant and coffee. Peter, our tour leader, had said he was going to Montmorency Falls to reconnoitre for a future tour and said anyone was welcome to join him. About a dozen took up that possibility. However, I had decided that I wanted to spent some time at the Musee des Beaux Arts de Quebec which was about half an hour away on foot. My route took me past the Quebec Parliament building which I was able to photograph up close. There was a one lady protest outside where placards told she was not allowed to export the maple syrup she had made. then I walked down the  Grand Avenue de L'Ouest and the Avenue George VI and along the Plains of Abraham. I realised that Quebec City is an easy city to negotiate  and orientate oneself in. The Museum brings together early French-Canadian artifacts and paintings, and very modern, abstract works of art. The top floor has a fascinating collection of some 2,600 Inuit artifacts  from the Arctic regions of Canada. It was time well spent. As I left the forecast rain arrived and I waited barely two minutes for the No. 11 bus that took me to the Place d'Youville and then the short walk back to the hotel. By the late afternoon many of our tour group were seated in the foyer. It is a very good group to be in and conversation and laughter flowed. Just before 6pm we went up the Rue Saint Jean with Monica and Mike from Rainford, St Helens and we found again a small, intimate restaurant Au Petit Coin Latin, and shared raclette as our main dish, a communal meal in itself, which one cooks oneself on a central heating circle placed in the middle of the table. Robert and I had snails as a starter (not bad at only $1.95 for six! We very much enjoyed. Chatting with the patron.

   Also in the restaurant was a school group from Vermont over the border in the USA who were with their French teacher on an educational visit. It was rather like the feeding of the five thousand in that their teacher spent about a quarter of an hour putting in trays all the raclette ingredients that had not been eaten. She told me that it would all go into sandwiches for tomorrow. Judging from the amount left, there would be enough to feed them until their return to the USA on Friday!

 Soon after we returned to the hotel the bus arrived to take us the half an hour or so journey to Charny Station across the St Lawrence from Quebec City. It was a small station and the waiting room soon filled; however the wait was not long and we were soon called to our sleeping compartments on, in our case, coach 23. Prior to boarding I chatted to a young man sitting next to me from Bielefeld, Germany who had been in Canada for the last ten months. After some time in the bar on the train chatting, it was time to get to bed and soon the train was making its way through the night from Quebec towards New Brunswick.

TUESDAY, MAY 28th:

  We have been so very fortunate with the weather and blue skies and sunshine again became the order of the day. We went out to the Cafe Paillard round the corner from the hotel for an excellent breakfast of croissant and coffee. 

    We are now in a very different Canada from our previous journeyings. For centuries the clifftop site of Quebec City was occupied by the Iroquois village of Stadacona. Although Jacques Cartier visited in the sixteenth century, permanent European settlement did not begin until 1608 when Samuel de Champlain established a fur-trading post here. An imposing statue of him stands opposite the Hotel de Ville. French missionaries and traders began to arrive as the seventeenth century progressed and by 1663 the entire French colony which stretched from Newfoundland to the Gulf of Mexico was known as New France and had become a royal province. However, long-brewing struggles between England and France had continued and in 1759 during the Seven Years War, the most significant battle in Canadian history took place here in Quebec when General James Wolfe led British forces up the Heights of Abraham and in a battle that lasted barely twenty minutes, defeated the French forces under their commander, the Marquis de Montcalm. Both leaders were mortally wounded in the battle and Quebec came into the hands of the British, a state of affairs that were ultimately confirmed by the Treaty of Paris in 1763.

   This morning we were taken on a city tour with our excellent driver/guide Francois. We made a stop on the Plains of Abraham, of iconic significance in Canada's history and looked down at the place where the British forces made their assault. We also had a conducted tour of the Citadelle which, covering forty acres, is the largest North American fort still occupied by troops; it's home to the Royal 22nd Regiment, Canada's only French-speaking regiment. The strategic site, a hundred metres above the St Lawrence River was first built upon by the French, but the British constructed most of the buildings under orders from the Duke of Wellington who was anxious about American attack after the War of 1812.

   We also stopped for a while in the old port area and walked along fascinating old streets up to the Place Royale, with its bust of Louis XIV. 

It has all certainly been very good for my French and I've enjoyed speaking it again.

     After the tour Robert and I ventured to eat a typical Quebec dish called a "poutine" which is really chips in gravy with melted cheese on top. Quite nice, but probably would  not rush to have it a second time.

We then wended our way around the old city and visited both the Roman Catholic and Anglican Cathedrals. In the latter it was interesting to see that the 10th Bishop of Quebec was born in Barrow-in-Furness in 1925. I wonder if he was an old boy of Barrow Grammar School where I used to teach?

   We walked up to the Chateau Frontenac, the hotel on the the top of the hill that often affords the iconic view of the city and walked through the plush lobby area. There we saw Alan from our tour group and had a coffee with him at the 1640 Restaurant opposite the Hotel de Ville. 

  For our evening meal we walked down to the lower town and found an excellent place to eat, the Bistro du Cap. The patronne was German, from Koblenz, though she had been in Canada for many years. Our young waitress was from Montevideo, Uruaguay! The bistro only had eighteen places so it was pleasantly intimate and we chatted with the girls at the next table who were on their first trip to Canada from Dusseldorf, Germany. We chose the table d'hôte which for me brought lentil and carrot soup, medallions of beef in pepper sauce with mashed potatoes and greens followed by orange and saffron rice lauding. All very tasty. We then proceeded up the hill and back to the hotel after an very interesting day getting to know Quebec

MONDAY, MAY 27th:

Quite a leisurely morning before our 11.35am train. We ate breakfast in the York cafe in the underground shops area of the hotel. Afterwards, needing an ATM I walked along Front Street and, after getting cash from the hole-in-the-wall, I noticed that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation building was opposite the bank. Not thinking about looking him up, in any case I only had about twenty minutes, but someone I was at school with both at junior school and grammar school, Keith Horner, has presented music programmes on CBC from Toronto for several years. I just wondered if there might be a photo of him in the foyer and inner atrium - there seemed to be photos all around depicting many aspects of CBC's programming. There wasn't, however there was an interesting museum off the foyer showing some of the history of Canadian broadcasting down the years.

      I got back to the hotel with a few minutes to spare before we all walked across the road to Toronto railway station for the train to Montreal, and then the ongoing train from there to Quebec. The rain left at 11.35am and our route took us along the north shore of Lake Ontario through Oshawa, Coburg, Belleville, Kingston, Brockville (with its platform mural of the visit of Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh in 1951), Cornwall , soon after which we crossed from Ontario into Quebec and were soon pulling into Montreal station, very much to time around 5.00pm. Suddenly we were in the predominantly French-speaking area of Canada, indeed 95% of the population of Quebec are French speaking. I had already chatted in French to two ladies in the seats opposite. Incidentally, on the rain journey from Toronto to Montreal there was free wi-fi on the train and I beamed up Yaroslav Alekseev in Yekaterinburg in Russia on Skype. I could see him sitting in his flat in the Urals and by pointing my iPad out of the window at the back of the train, he could see the passing scenery in Canada! 

     There was time for a bowl of soup and an orange juice in one of the food outlets in the station before our continuing journey on another train to Quebec City. The train left at 6.15pm and there were good views of the St Lawrence Seaway as we crossed over the river on leaving Montreal. After its opening by The Queen and President Eisenhower in 1959,  it enabled massive ocean-going freighters to sail up the St Lawrence right up to Duluth, Minnesota. An amazing feat of engineering, though its usage has declined somewhat in more recent years with the movement towards transport by rail and road. Our journey through the province of Quebec took us across the St Lawrence and inland through saint Hyacinthe, Drummondville, Sainte-Foy. 

   Our train pulled into the chateau-like station in Quebec City almost on time at 9.35pm. There a bus was waiting to take us to the Hotel Manoir Victoria in the Old City. Once we had found our rooms Robert and I had a short walk in the area immediately around the hotel and had hot chocolate and a muffin at Tim Horton's next door. We walked up the Rue Saint Jean as far as the Porte Saint Jean, one of the old gates in the city walls.

SUNDAY, MAY 26th:

We went round the corner from the hotel to Tim Horton's and I had a cup of coffee and a pastry for breakfast. We were all down in the hotel foyer for an 8.30am start on our way to Niagara Falls. With our local guide Patrick and driver Bernice, originally from Zakopane in Poland, we set off around the western end of Lake Ontario on another bright and sunny day. The highway was Queen Elizabeth Way, named after the Queen Mother, following her and King George VI's visit to Canada in 1939. Perhaps the words in the Rough Guide to Canada are eloquent in their description of the impression that the Falls make:  "Even if you've seen all the postcards and watched all the films, nothing quite prepares you for your first glimpse of the falls, a fearsome white arc shrouded in clouds of dense spray with the river boats struggling down below, mere specks against the surging cauldron." It is amazing to stand looking over at a phenomenon that one has known about since childhood. Millions of gallons that cascade over the falls every minute: the American Falls to the left and the Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side, with Goat Island between marking the international border between to the two countries. The border also marks the frontier between Ontario and New York state.

We had been booked on the "Maid of the Mist" boat trip and descended on the lift, put on the blue waterproof ponchos and were soon on board on the boat that took us close to the Horseshoe Falls with the spray fiercely coming over us. A great adventure and a wonderful, unforgettable sight!

    We had ample free time to wander along the promenade and look at the Falls from many angles. We were also booked for a buffet lunch at the Sheraton with an excellent elevated view of the Falls from the restaurant on the thirteenth floor. 

    We made another stop, once back in the bus, at the Whirlpool, a point in the river where the water swirls in an anti-clockwise direction and where Captain Webb, the first man to swim across the English Channel, was drowned in 1882.

    Our last stop of the day was in the charming little town in Niagara-on-the-Lake. With its clapboard houses and manicured gardens, many of the former dating back to the first half of the nineteenth century, it has an elegance all of its own. Despite the crowds it is a pleasant place to wander around, and has a pretty lakeside setting with views across to Fort Niagara.

     One surprise of the trip was to see the large number of wineries and extensive cultivation of vines. Sadly, Canadian wines don't seem to make it across the Atlantic to be sold in wine outlets in the UK.

     It was an excellent day with wonderful views in lovely weather. what could be better?!

      We arrived back at our hotel in Toronto about 6.40pm and went out for a snack just after 8.30pm.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 22nd:

Again we got up quite early as our suitcases had to be outside the rooms by 8am. Another filling breakfast set us up for the day, though back in the room couldn't quite understand why the cost of the buffet breakfast had risen considerably in the space of 24 hours. On closer examination log the bill, I realized that they had put the bill the other member of the group who shared our table on our bill! That was soon rectified, but the easiest means: Ian being paged then him paying us the fifteen dollars!

     The coach for our morning excursion arrived with driver, Rick, another friendly and humorous member of the Brewster coach firm staff! Our journey again took us south-east of Jasper and we made our first stop at Maligne Canyon, a place where the Maligne River has eroded the rocks and has formed over time a deep gorge with a spectacular waterfall. We were able to walk a little way down and even see a nest of black swifts in a niche in the rock face above the falls. 

      Again the magnificent scenery of Jasper National Park surrounded us at every turn. Soon were were at Medicine Lake, an intriguing stretch of water which rises and falls at different times of the year. Rick told us that when he was last here two weeks ago the lake was barely a trickle, but now it certainly deserves the generic title of being a lake. Throughout the year at different seasons it is drained by a series of underground tunnels and caves; indeed it empties though lake-bed sink holes into the world's largest system of limestone caves. The ebbs and flows of the lakes seemed strange behaviour to the First Nation people who believed spirits were responsible, hence the name they gave to it. Along the way we did see elk and through the trees a moose, but no bears! 

    Maligne Lake is about 14 miles long and was first seen by European eyes by an intrepid lady called Mary Schaffer in 1908. It was just very pleasant to find a quiet spot with a bench, far from the madding crowd, and drink in the spectacular sight of mountain, lake, clouds, forests. 

     On the way back to Jasper we stopped at Jasper Park Lodge, quite a luxurious establishment with regards to its central buildings; indeed its gigantic lounge reminds me of the lounge at the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park, California. Most of us in the group returned to Jasper in the coach; others elected to stay at the Lodge and either walk the 5km back to town or return on the shuttle bus.

      Back in town it was really a case of killing time until the departure of the train at 5.30pm. So there was time to have lunch as dinner on the train would not be until several hours away. We ate at Smitty's. The young waiter turned out to be the son of the lady at the till. She was originally from Hong Kong and said that her son had studied in the UK  for two years. It turned out that he had been a student at the University of Leicester. Afterwards we wandered a little around town and in a shop dedicated to Native Arts I bought a packet of Christmas cards with a lovely painting of a First Native family looking over the snow to a village.

       Our rendez-vous back at the coach was 4pm to pick up our hand luggage. The news was that the train was running about  two hours late, so there was not much else to  do than to wait at the station. Though it was quite windy it was warm enough to sit outside. I chatted with a young German from Dresden who has just finished two years study in Victoria, British Columbia and is travelling across Canada before flying back to Germany in mid-June. We also saw again the New Zealand couple from Christchurch whom we met in the cafeteria at the glacier.

       Eventually our train came in soon after the Rocky Mountaineer  and though the train staff worked hard we didn't pull out of Jasper Station until just after 8pm, some two and a half hours late. In the eventuality we were not called into dinner until 9.45pm, again to an excellent meal of rack of lamb. Two ladies from New York State were our table companions for the meal and shared some of their travel stories.

        By then it was bedtime and time to return to our cabin where the beds were all made up and it was good to get into them. I was soon asleep only to be awakened about 2.45am as we clanked into Edmonton Station, some three and three quarter hours late.

THURSDAY, MAY 23rd:

Another good night's sleep on a rocking train. What a contrast in scenery from yesterday as we awoke in the Canadian Prairies, the land flat as far as the eye could see. I was surprised by the amount of water there was with small lakes and ponds in abundance. We are now in central Canada and in the part that is the wheat basket of the country. Our route took us through Saskatoon where we stopped for a short while and were able to get out of the train and wander up and down the platform. However, before arriving there, we walked right down to the back of the train to the rear observation coach. There a lady was talking incessantly, hardly  drawing a breath, to a quiet New Zealand man from the Bay of Islands. Thankfully she left and we had the opportunity to chat with him.

    We travelled then south east from Saskatoon through a region that, looking on the map had interesting names - Handel, Mozart, Leipzig, Esterhazy, Nokomis, Kandahar, Punnichy. The guidebook told us that towns along the railroad hereabouts were names in alphabetical order along the line, hence Xena, Young, Zelma, Allen, Bradwell, Clavet follow each other. We stopped briefly at Melville. In this part of the Prairies there were farm buildings in the red and white Dutch style that I had see before in the American Mid-West.  Fields, forests, rivers continued to populate the landscape as we travelled towards and then into Manitoba. At dinner we were seated again with the two ladies, mother and daughter-in-law from New York State and we learned more about them Thelma Pelych is 87 years old and just retired as the City Treasurer for Cornell, NY. She served in that office for forty four years and only twice in that time did anyone else stand against her. They have just named the municipal building after her. Quite a lady!

   And so our train journey continues as the sun begins to set. We are still about four hours behind schedule, but who worries. We have nowhere to be tonight other than our beds and after tonight we still have another night on the train before we reach our destination, Toronto. We are told that the scheduled two hour stop in Winnipeg, the first place I arrived on the North American continent in 1980, will be reduced to about forty five minutes. It is there where we will have a complete change of crew. In the end we pulled into Winnipeg Union Station at 10.45pm and there was time to get out and stretch our legs in the imposing rotunda that forms the station concourse. Unfortunately the free wi-fi connection within the station had gone down earlier in the evening.

FRIDAY, MAY 24th:

Another good night's sleep on the train and I didn't wake up till almost 7.30am. We had crossed from Manitoba into Ontario during the night and the fields and plains of the Prairies had been replaced by forests and lakes which have a beauty of their own and stretch for hundreds of miles, or so it seems. Life on the train continues as normal!  There is a good shower at the end of each coach and each sleeping cabin has a toilet and sink. However, seeing that I've decided not to shave and see what I look like with a beard (the previous one was during university years!) it all doesn't very long first thing in the morning! It is fascinating to sit, occasionally in the dome car, but more usually in the 'activity car' and watch this spectacular scenery pass by. It is VERY relaxing! There is always someone to chat with, usually from our own tour group but at other times with fellow travellers from other countries. After lunch today we walked down through about fifteen carriages to the park car at the very back, from where one could look out at the rails and scenery behind us. On the way to the back I chatted and joked with the New Zealand couple from Christchurch whom we'd me at the cafeteria at the Columbia Icefields and was pleased to tell them that England beat New Zealand in the First Test. They said they  were not surprised!

    The weather remained pleasant throughout the day: blue skies and sunshine. At the station stops it was quite adequate to go out on the platform in a short-sleeved shirt.

    Towards the end of the afternoon a couple of musicians sang and played their guitars in the dome car: a brother and sister from Edmonton, who had a Portuguese surname as their family originated from Goa. 

   Our railway journey today had taken us out east from Winnipeg and across western Ontario through Sioux Lookout, Longlac, Hornepayne, Oba.

    After another excellent dinner there was good conversation in the lounge before night fell and we entered our third successive night on the train on our coast to coast travels.

SATURDAY, MAY 25th:

 Not as sound a sleep as in previous nights on the train, so I got up soon after 6.00am. We had travelled south through Ontario during the night hours and on pulling up the blinds in the cabin the trees, maple in particular, were in full leaf. We had come through Sudbury in the middle of the night and skirted the edge of Georgian Bay, the large inlet from Lake Huron, and along the eastern bank of Lake Simcoe, then proceeding south west into Toronto. We had regained some of the time during the night and pulled into Union Station only one and a half hours late. We said our goodbyes to Thelma Pelych and her daughter in law Sue, whose husband had driven up from New York State and met them at the station. Our hotel, the Fairmont Royal York, could not have been nearer - it is literally across the street from the station, so no bus transport was needed! Opened  in 1929 as one of the chain of hotels across the country, it was built by the railway company, and is plush indeed. Royalty and other VIPs have stayed here down the years. 

     With us being later into Toronto, the planned coach excursion around the city was delayed until the afternoon. My friends Richard and Joan Boehme very kindly came into the city on a two hour bus ride from Peterborough, Ontario and so I waited in the hotel for them, rather than going with the group. I first met them in 1989 when they had come on exchange to Formby in the Crosby Circuit and my colleague Geoff Barnard went to Canada. in more recent years we have kept in touch via Skype. For an hour or so after they arrived at 1.40pm we sat in the hotel foyer talking and then went for a cup of coffee in one of the hotel's restaurants. Later in the afternoon I went up to the room and Robert and the group had arrived back from their tour of the city. So Robert joined us and we walked to the impressive Brookfield Place shopping complex a block or so away and took up the recommendation of Peter, our group leader, to eat at Marche, a fascinating eatery where you are given a swipe card on entry and from whichever of the many counters you choose your food from, the card is swiped and you pay as you leave. Richard and Joan kindly treated us and we enjoyed good conversation. Incidentally, I realized from her accent that the girl on the desk at the entrance was Russian so we had a brief conversation in Russian! All too soon it was time for Richard and Joan to take the subway to travel to the bus station for their return journey to Peterborough and so we said our farewells, with Robert and I walking back through Brookfield Place to the hotel and catching up with the world via BBC World News on the television in the room. Then it was a case of going out to Tim Horton's the coffee shop chain, for free wifi, rather than pay $15 at the hotel for 24 hours.

TUESDAY, MAY 21st:

The alarm went at 6.30am as we had an 8.00am start. We had the buffet breakfast at the hotel and were served by Simona, a young waitress from  Lithuania. She was pleased that we knew where it was and even more pleased to know we had been there!

      Twelve of us in the group had chosen to go on the six hour excursion to the heart of the Canadian Rockies. With driver, Bruce, we set off in a small bus southwards along the Icefields Parkway, following the course of the Athabasca and Sunwapta rivers. The  road was constructed to give men work during the Depression in the 1930s and took nine years to complete. Our first stop was the Athabasca Falls where the Athabasca River plunges dramatically, even if only 75 feet, to the river bed below. On either side as we drove on were increasingly snow capped peaks and thickly forested slopes. One peak was Mount Edith Cavell, named after the British nurse in World War 1 who helped British soldiers out of Belgium and was subsequently shot at dawn by the Germans. The waters of the river were aquamarine showing its purity; indeed later, on the glacier, we actually drank handfuls of the water that tasted so fresh. The Columbia Icefield, covering an area of 325 square kilometres, is the largest collection of ice and snow in the entire Rockies and the largest glacial area in the northern hemisphere outside the Arctic Circle. Meltwater from it flows into the Arctic, Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the only mother such place in the world is in Siberia. When we arrived at the Icefield Centre, we had a fine view across to the 

Athabasca Glacier and within half an hour were on one of the sno-buses 

That conveyed us the four kilometres onto the glacier itself. These buses have massive wheels 1.5 metres high and 1 metre in width. Our driver for this was Japanese with a brilliant sense of humour. He had worked as an accountant in Japan but then for a short time in New York, from where he and his wife travelled to Canada for holidays. He fell in love with the Canadian Rockies and vowed that when he retired he would become a driver in the ice fields. So now he and his wife spend the summer here and the winter back home in Japan. Again there seemed to be a lot of Australian tour groups at the moment, though we mistook a couple whose table we joined in the cafeteria later. It turned out they were from New Zealand and will actually be on the same train as us leaving Jasper for Toronto tomorrow. We chatted too with a young Dutch couple from Alkmaar.  It was breath-taking to walk around on the snow and ice itself with views of the majestic peaks rising above. 

      Back at the Icefields Centre there was the opportunity for a bite to eat before the coach journey back to Jasper where we arrived just after 2.30pm. Later in the afternoon I went for a swim in the hotel pool for half an hour and had the pool to myself. Bliss!

      For our evening meal we decided not to track into town and back and  so had our evening meal at the Embers Restaurant in Marmot Lodge which is the hotel next door to ours. As we walked back along the road three elk were grazing at the roadside, oblivious, it seemed to the passing traffic. 

     Tonight will be our last stay in a hotel until we get to Toronto. There lies before us three nights on the train. 

MONDAY, MAY 20th:

 I slept well as the train trundled through the night towards the Rockies. It was not, therefore, difficult to get up at about 5.00am and watch the dawn break over the mountains - a beautiful sight as we followed the valley of the Fraser River. Soon after 5.30am we stopped at Kamloops, about half an hour ahead of schedule, it seems. At 6.30am the doors to the dining car were opened and breakfast began. Quite a number  of our party had also decided to be early risers and were up in the dome car. After a very adequate breakfast we divided time in the dome car and the observation car to continue to admire the spectacular scenery. Our ongoing route took us up the Thompson River valley and through the Columbia Mountains that became ever more snow-capped. Their sides were covered in fir and pine trees and the lower slopes had mile upon mile of aspen trees. We stopped for quite a long time at Blue River and were able to walk at the side of the train and even patronise the one store in the small township. The two of us had offered to have lunch on the early, 11.00am sitting, as Peter, our leader could not get enough reservations for the whole group for the 12.30pm sitting. Since breakfast was pretty early for us an 11.00am lunch was no great problem. We enjoyed chatting with our two fellow lunchers on our table who were from Queensland, the lady,in  fact, had worked in Saudi Arabia for three years. She was from near Brisbane and her brother who was travelling  with her lives on the Gold Coast. As the afternoon progressed we were greatly regaled by Walter who was our coach attendant. He was a real wit and when he was around there was never a dull moment!

      When we left British Columbia and crossed the provincial boundary into Alberta we moved from Pacific time to Mountain time, thereby gaining an hour. Along the way we had past the spectacular Pyramid Falls that cascaded some three hundred feet down the mountainside; we had skirted past Mount Robson, the highest point in the Canadian Rockies at almost 13,000 feet, and we had seen a black bear sauntering into the forest from a cleaning near the railway line. 

      At about 4.20pm our long train pulled into Jasper Station having travelled over 500 miles since leaving Vancouver. Situated at the confluence of the Miette and Athabasca Rivers, its core centres around just two main streets. The bus that met us at the station took us to the Sawridge Inn on the outskirts of the town and we were soon in our rooms. Soon we walked into town and looked at the shops and decided to eat at L&Ws Restaurant which was apparently owned by Greeks. There we enjoyed a lovely meal of lamb souvlaki before wending our weary way back to the hotel. We had seen breathtaking scenery along our journey today.

SUNDAY, MAY 19th:

 Vancouver now has a population of about two million but in a modern sense has only existed for just over 120 years. Captain George Vancouver claimed the land for Britain in 1792 and named the deep natural port "Burrard" after one of his companions, but it wasn't until 1886 two years after the Canadian Pacific Railway decided to make it the terminus for the transcontinental railway, that what had developed as the town of  Granville was renamed in honour of Vancouver.

    After breakfast we walked down to Christ Church Cathedral on this Pentecost Sunday morning. The outside belies the inside which seems amazingly spacious with the chairs in an arc form that very much draws one in. There were five baptisms including one reluctant toddler who appeared to refuse every attempt by both priest and parents to get her turned towards the font; indeed it left us with the question as to whether the child had been baptised at all! The passage in Acts 2 describing the day of Pentecost was read very imaginatively with sections in English, French, Russian, German, Dutch, Japanese, Welsh, and Gaelic. Indeed the whole liturgy was very well put together and the sermon, given by the deacon and business chaplain on the cathedral staff was first class. We stayed on for coffee and then walked down to the Hotel Vancouver which  is now in its  third incarnation, the present building dating back to 1939, constructed just in time for the visit that year of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. The original was built like several others in the cities along the railroad at the end of the 1880s. This was the special frat of the holiday: to have afternoon tea in its plush salon. Quite an experience! The waiter brought a cake stand with scones, jam and cream on the top level, then small cakes and pastries on the second and sandwiches de luxe on the lower plate. But, of course, it was the ambience that made it so special and unforgettable. A treat indeed!

       From there we walked down to the waterfront and took the ferry (again just $1.75 return for seniors) across to Lonsdale Quay. In some ways, what was over there was very similar of the markets on Granville Island, but crossing over the Burrard Inlet did afford great views back across to the city and the mountains. 

       Soon it was time to return on the ferry and to wait for the coach that would take us to the railway station. Once at the station there was coffee/tea and biscuits available in the writing room for all the passengers and soon after 8pm we were called on board and had the long walk down the platform to our cabins. They were understandably small and functional each with a toilet and sink and a shower at the end of the carriage. On time at 8 30pm the long train, "The Canadian", pulled out of the station. There was time to socialise a little in the dome car that afforded a three hundred and sixty degree view. There was an Australian tour group on board and we chatted with folk from Toowoomba, Queensland, Melbourne and Adelaide, swapping stories of our times 'down under'. The staff had miraculously changed mour cabin from daytime to night time mode (how they dealt with the chair seats is still a mystery!) and we turned out the light about 10.30pm with the train rocking us gently to sleep as the rail line followed the course of the Fraser River.

SATURDAY, MAY 18th:

Vancouver is one of the world's cities that has a majestic snow-capped mountain backdrop, but that was not to be seen amidst the mist and rain of this morning. However, by the end of the day when we chose to ride the Skytrain out to the farthest available suburbs Surrey and King George (very reasonable price of $1.75 for seniors) it was brighter and clearer and we saw some of the majesty of the mountains. The only draw back was when a man who looked older than me stood up to give me a seat!

   We had breakfast in the hotel and were all ready for the departure of our tour coach at 9.00am. As we waited there was good opportunity to begin to get to know the fellow members of the tour group, which is always  interesting as people begin to share their stories. Neil and Janet from Huddersfield confided that today was Neil's sixty-fifth birthday and this trip was to mark that. When we talked about schools we had both attended I mentioned that I went to Huddersfield New College and it turned out that he knew Les Baldwin who was at school as the same time as I was and a name and face from over fifty years ago came to mind!

    It transpired later that the local guide had not turned up and Oscar, our Spanish driver, did a manful job in deputising with Peter, our group leader, who had lead this tour before putting in additional snippets of information. Our first stop was in Gastown, one of Vancouver's oldest areas. The district grew up around a saloon, opened in 1867 by "Gassy" (i.e. talkative) Jack Deighton and the name has stuck. There also is the famous steam clock that is still maintained by the man who built it in the 1970s. It toots like a steam engine at the quarter hours and plays the Westminster chimes on the hour. Quite feat of engineering! On then into China Town the second biggest in North America after San Francisco. It is actually older than the city itself, beginning in 1858 when the first wave of Chinese immigrants were drawn to Canada by the gold rush. Then in the 1880s even more Chinese workers arrived to help built the new railroad. This is certainly evident in the Vancouver of today where almost half of the population are ethnically oriental. After China Town we were  driven along the waterfront up to Stanley Park, a magnificent area of tamed wilderness of over a thousand acres just a few blocks for downtown. It was originally home to the Musqueam and Squamish native Canadians, but in 1886 it was made a park by the local council and named after Lord Stanley who was the first Governor-General of  Canada. There are beaches, hiking trails and fir and cedar woods as well as wonderful views back across to the city , English Bay and the coastal mountains. There is a fine collection of totem poles (or story poles as they are correctly called). These are replicas, the originals being in the Museum of the University of British Columbia.

    The tour ended at Granville Island, once a down trodden industrial district where the warehouses and other buildings have been revitalised as markets, stores, cafes, restaurants, galleries and artist studios - fascinating to wander around. Apparently in 1886 a fire destroyed much of the fledgling city of Vancouver and drove people south onto Granville Island and beyond. Robert was very much wanting clam chowder for lunch and we found a handy little cafe that filled the bill very well. After lunch we took the little aquabus that does a water tour around False Creek and then took a slightly larger one that took UBS across the river to Hornby Street from where we walked back to the hotel. Our sightseeing ended for the day when we walked down to the Sky Train station and went to the end of the line out in the suburbs, as I described above. For our evening meal we went to Earls kitchen further down Robson Street from the hotel and had one of the nicest meals I've had in a long while. On paper it doesn't sound much: Cajun blackened hickey with potato salad and coleslaw, but it was absolutely delicious with each part complementing the other for taste.

       From Earls we wended our weary way back to the flopped out on the beds about 8pm. Waking at 10pm we got into pyjamas and went straight back to bed, so I reckon I had about ten hours sleep when I woke up on Sunday morning! 

Friday, May 17th:
I would certainly recommend the Park Inn Hotel near Heathrow Airport if anyone has to stay overnight before an early flight. It was impeccably clean and quiet and the Heathrow Hotel Hoppa picks up at the door. We took the 6.35am bus and were soon at Terminal 3 where in Zone D we saw the Great Rail Journey Tour Leader. He told us that our group consisted of 28 people but 5 of them were already over in Canada. There was a moment of apprehension at the check-in when Robert's passport triggered some security alert and they had to ring Canada to check it out! It turned out that the likely 'problem' was the fact that his birthday is September 11th and since 9/11 this causes minor alert in Canada! All was quickly and humorously sorted out and we proceeded smoothly through into departures, with none of the hassle and brusqueness that I have almost always experienced at Heathrow security. Indeed, when I jokingly said that I have forgotten to pick up my coin purse on one or two occasions before, the officer said: "Don't worry, I'll put it in your jacket pocket."
     In the departure lounge we had a coffee and croissant, and met a couple from Kirkburton, Huddersfield, my home town, who are on our trip  and then later a couple from Hereford who had the Great Rail Journey label on their hand luggage. It was only shortly after 7.15am, so there was the long wait until the gate opened at 9.25am. From time to time I espied the Great Rail Journeys luggage label and chatted with the owners! At W.H. Smith I bought a copy of the French newspaper Le Figaro which will help to keep my French up and running for when we get to Quebec!
    Around 9.40am our gate was assigned and we made our way down to it and were soon aboard Air Canada flight AC855. We were airborne by 11am and our route was a significantly more northerly one than on visits to California. We flew up the whole length of Britain leaving the coast over the very north of Scotland, passing over the Faeroe Islands and north of Iceland. We travelled across the central ice sheet of Greenland crossing into Canada over Baffin Island in what is now the territory of Nunavut. On then over North West Territories above Yellowknife and down across British Columbia landing in Vancouver just a few minutes after midday (8.00pm in the UK). It had been a smooth flight with friendly staff and the nine hours passed relatively painlessly! I had recorded quite a lot  on my MP3 player so through the earphones I had some great music to listen to. I managed to read virtually all of the autobiography of Paul Sculthorpe, the rugby league player, which our friends in St Helens, John and Sheila Brotherton, fellow GRJ travellers, had given me.
      There was a long queue at immigration as about ten flights had all arrived at roughly the same time, but once through that we gathered as a tour group near the luggage carousel and began to discover who was who. On board the bus to central Vancouver, Peter Davis our tour leader, gave out a list of names and the towns where are from which revealed a rich variety: London, Warwick, Orkney, Fareham, Guildford, St Helens, Stockton-on-Tees, Leicester, Oxford, Eastbourne, Dingwall, Huddersfield and us from Chorley.
      It was raining steadily with fairly leaden skies as  the bus took us into the city, to the Blue Horizon Hotel on Robson Street in the main shopping area. Our room was on the fourteenth floor, quite spacious, though, by contrast, with a pretty small bathroom. It was a corner room so there were good views (hopefully even better views when the rain and mist lift!)
   After the long day we went to bed about 4pm and slept till 6pm (2.00am Saturday morning in the UK). After getting up we waked out onto Robson Street in the rain. My umbrella having fallen apart a few weeks ago, it was time to pop into the local supermarket here and purchase an equally cheap one. If it lasts the trip it will still be money well spent! It was good to wander out and see the shops and the people. Soon we lighted on the Thai House Restaurant not far from the hotel and had the set meal for two with friendly and helpful service from the staff there. Although it was barely 8.30pm we wended our weary way back to our room and were ready get to bed early (or, on British time, late!)

Thursday, May 16th:

Tom Simpson, a friend from Fleetwood days who has recently moved to Chorley, kindly came at 11.30am to drive us to Chorley station where we took the 11.56am train to Manchester Airport. Our flight (Virgin Atlantic 3048) to Heathrow left a little early and was by no means full; indeed, we arrived fifteen minutes early and had to air a few minutes before the stand was vacated for our plane to come in. It was a short ride on the Heathrow Hotel Hoppa bus that took us to the Park Inn and we had a pleasant room (2952) on the second floor. In fact we were impressed with the hotel, despite several negative comments on Trip Adviser! We enjoyed an excellent evening meal at a moderate price and were well served by Manfredi (Italian), Anna and Pawel (Poland) and Istvan (Hungary) whose face lit up when I used the few words of Hungarian that I know and also knew a little about the area he comes from in the north east of the country! He was particularly impressed to know that Chorley is twinned with the Hungarian town of Szekesfehervar. 

    It is to be an early start in the morning. We will need to catch the 6.35am Hotel Hoppa bus to Terminal 3, so we ought to get an early night.

    So now we look ahead to Canada - a country I have visited just twice before: in 1980 when I flew to Winnipeg where Robert met me at the airport and we drove across eastern Manitoba and across part of Ontario  to Thunder Bay on Lake Superior from where we then took the road down the very pretty North Shore to Duluth and on through central Minnesota to Coon Rapids where Robert then lived. My second time in Canada was in 1985 when I flew to Toronto and stayed one night before flying on to Sault Saint Marie and across the border into Michigan where I did a six week ministerial exchange in Gwinn, Michigan. But it will be this trip that will bring home the vastness of the Canada, the second largest country in the world after Russia, extending over six time zones. The United Kingdom can fit into Canada 41 times, but Canada's population at 33 million is well under half that of the UK. Almost half the Canadian population claim British ancestry, a quarter French and just under a million claim aboriginal ancestry. It has an amazing spectrum of cultures and, so guidebooks tend to point out, Canada's official policy is multiculturalism, in contrast to the USA where citizens are encouraged to perceive themselves as American above all else. And, of course, Canada is a relatively young country being a confederation of ten provinces and three territories. It has been self-governing since 1867, though Newfoundland, England's oldest colony, did not move from that status until 1949 when it joined the confederation. The ties to Britain are retained by means of the British monarch being head of state and thereby Queen of Canada. Books often say that it is hard to answer the question "What is a Canadian?". The quip of Pierre Berton, one of the country's finest writers, is often quoted for he wisely ducks the question, saying humorously: "A Canadian is someone. Who knows how to make love in a canoe!"