Forever Cruisers: Back to Vancouver

A much better day today. My first mistake was setting the alarm last night for 6.30. I had forgotten to reset the time, as the clocks went back as we crossed over from Alberta to British Columbia. Hence the alarm went off at 5.30. Considering that we didn't get to sleep until after 11.00, a bit sleep deprived. Anyway we got picked up and delivered to the train at 7.30. Our train has grown to about 20 carriages, as they have combined 2 trains. The really good news is that we are the last carriage, so have had some great photos of the train winding it's way along the river, on our way to Vancouver. The process of getting us onto the coaches and then our respective carriages was impressive. In no time we were underway.

The journey today is much better, as we are travelling down a river valley and there are far less trees to block our view. Our cabin crew has increased to 3 as they were 1 down yesterday. The food has once again been great and of course the weather is great - probably too warm. Interesting to see all the logs along the way which will eventually be floated down the river. Some of them looked pretty old, so I'm not too sure what the process is. We seem to be keeping good time and even a little early at this stage.

Spoke too soon. Although we were well ahead of time, we also had to manoeuvre through major marshalling yards, which took us almost half an hour. Anyway we reached pour destination and were greeted by all the Rocky Mountaineer staff standing on the platform, waving. A very American sorry of thing. Our staff also thanked us enthusiastically and one of them called Holiday (yep, that's right) sang to us as we pulled in. Probably coincidental that there was an envelope for gratuities in the seat pocket, but honestly a suggested $80 was way, way over the top. Probably the one thing which has got me most on this holiday is the tipping thing. It's just that we don't understand it properly and are never too sure whether we are under or over tipping. Generally I think I am getting better, but will nerd to unlearn when we get home.

Our hotel on this sector is the Holiday Inn and although it's a bit further away from the waterfront, it is handy, clean and has good, reasonable food. Tuesday we woke to a light drizzle and a little cooler temperature as we headed to Vancouver Island and this turned out to be a big day out. It was almost an hour to get out of Vancouver to the ferry terminal for our trip over. We went aboard the ferry in the bus and then rushed upstairs for as coffee and as seat. The ferry ride is 1.5 hours, but was very interesting as I didn't realise that there are so many islands on the way and we twisted and turned through them. The smaller islands are inhabited by retirees apparently - no popping down to the shops/pub for them!

The really interesting thing we found out is that the port is close to the USA border, which runs along the 49th parallel, with the exception of Vancouver Island, which is solely Canadian territory. This is apparently because they moved the capital of BC to Victoria at the time of setting borders. On the other hand, there is a little point on the end of the Canadian peninsula, with a couple of hundred inhabitants and they are Americans. The children go to school in Canada (of course) and they have to carry passports and go through border control every day. Seemed complete madness to me.

Our purpose of visiting VI was to go to the Butchart Gardens. These are contained in an old quarry and suffice to say that they were magnificent. We had just over an hour and a half there and then drove further down to Victoria, another city overlooking the harbour. The weather had cleared coming across from the mainland and was pretty well perfect for walking around. Had plenty of time to look around and visited the Miniature Museum - most of which was very good. Retraced our route and eventually got back to our hotel just after 9.30, in time catch the restaurant which closes at 10.00.

Wednesday 11th
A quiet day thankfully. The first without an alarm for a week. We went up the Vancouver Lookout (Tower), as this was also included with our Rocky Mountaineer package. It was a good day for viewing the city, as tomorrow is likely to see some showers later in the day. It was lovely to just amble around without having to continually check the time too be back on the bus!!! Vivian has just had a swim in the heated pool here in the hotel and you never know, tomorrow I may join her.

Sadly tomorrow is the last full day of our holiday and it is amazing how much we have seen and all the people/friends we have met. The joys of travel. We are looking forward to a final dinner with Rohays & Don tomorrow night, but not the bag stuffing on Friday!