Start of a great train journey!
Our weekend began by grabbing a quick breakfast on Saturday morning. We got chatting with an Australian guy in the kitchen, who found our accent extremely amusing and kept trying to impersonate us - badly! His attempt at a northern accent came out as either Geordie or Irish!! Despite this he did give us some oats to take with us - so wasn't that bad!!
We boarded the 'Canadian' at around 09.00, very exciting! We were impressed with the train, plenty of leg room, recling seats and long windows for good viewing. We had a coffee and a bite to eat, and settled down to read and look at the scenery. For most of the day the scenery was the same but quite spectacular. Beautiful forests with trees of every imaginable colour, and every few minutes the view would open up onto huge lakes.
Two carriages behind us is the sky dome carriage, which has a glass roof. The views are tremendous - we will definitely be in there when we approach the Rockies. The day was spent leisurely reading, looking out of the window, listening to music. We had a fine 3 course evening meal - nectarines to start, followed by quiche and sandwiches, with yoghurt for pudding, all washed down with a drop of fine vintage water.
We didn't think we would sleep but both managed to get a few hours during the night - there were many spare seats so we were able to spread out.
During the night we travelled through a time zone and are now 6 hours behind GMT. Both awoke around 7am. The early morning views were amazing, forests of pine, with early morning mists rising from the lakes. We were amazed to see frost on the ground too. Sure enough, when we got off the train to stretch our legs at 9am it was bloody cold- a vast difference between here and Toronto.
After a breakfast of bananas, muffins and coffee the day passed fairly uneventfully. That is until our quiet carriage was mobbed by a group of marauding senior citizens who had been on a guided tour for a few days. They were definitely not well behaved - losing their hearing aids and flirting outrageously with their young male tour guide - it was like being on the set of The Golden Girls.
We arrived in Winnipeg at about 15.30 and began our long trek to the hostel, on the way we got picked up by a very kind family who offered us a lift - very welcome! Now even though the hostel looked like something out of the Adam's Family it is actually quite nice, very clean and friendly. We got chatting with a few travellers from Switzerland, Germany and Holland.
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It also has a dome car so when you are travelling through the more scenic areas you can get a 360 degree view. You can imagaine that this is very good whlst travelling through the Rockies.
We travelled in September, so outside of the busiest times so there was loads of room, not sure if it would be the same in Summer.
In order to travel on it we bought a rail pass (15 days of travel in 30 days), although it was expensive it meant that we could travel accross at our own pace and break up the journey.
Well worth doing as you get to see a lot of this massive country.
