Day two of the choo choo

 (Friday 10th)

Well my cold well and truly kicked in during the night and I woke up feeling pretty rough and not a lot of sleep. 

Part of me couldn’t face being on a train for the full day with pumped through air whilst feeling rough and struggling to breathe. The other part thought that aside from being on my own sofa, where else could be better than THIS particular train.

We were the last to get on the coach despite being a couple of minutes early. The sea of faces staring out at us from the dark on the coach made me feel like a naughty schoolgirl! 

Back in the same seats on the train and the day was looking lovely and crisp and sunny. 

The people near us were already at 80% of max volume and also hogged the seats that were now empty, asking for them to be turned round to create a group of 4. The couple they wanted to join them said they were fine where they were so they said ‘…no problem, we’ll sit in these 4 in case you want to join us but keep our original seats too. Oh this is SO great, look at all of our space’. (Which we heard at least another 3 times during the day 😤)

Grrrrrrr…

Mustn’t let them wind me up…not their fault I’m tired or didn’t get to those empty seats before them!  

I lie…they were proper doing my head in - there were a couple of things I saw them do/heard them say that really marked their card with me. Never mind how one of them NEVER seemed to shut up. Her every thought was out there for us all to hear and some of them weren’t always nice. And she had no volume control. Honestly, I looked like someone who was very reserved next to her haha! 

 I was not impressed AT ALL but I had to keep it calm given where we were… it’s all lovely Sarah, it’s aaallll lovely…

Let’s look out of the window..! 

They’re taken as we came out of Kamloops and came past Kamloops lake which is 25 miles long and 163m deep. Apparently there have been sightings of a Loch Ness type monster!! 

The last photo is us going through a tunnel! 

We were in second sitting for meals today so to keep us going they brought round lemon cake and coffee/tea. 

Around 9.20am we were taken down for our breakfast which was the same menu as yesterday which was great as there’s plenty of choice and you can adapt any of them as you wish. Or order more than one each. 

I had the Eggs Benedict and swapped the bacon for Salmon. And as the bar was now open as we were ordering I had a Canadian Caesar (as did Dan!).

Breakfast was delicious and we had a great catch up with Pete who is part of the team looking after us for the two day. He’s from Birmingham but has a strange Aussie/British accent on account of an Australian mum and an Irish dad! 

After an hour or so in the dining car we returned to our seats. Today felt a little more chilled and less crazy exciting but not in a bad way. We knew how it worked now and so we could just kick back and really enjoy it. 

We followed the Thompson river most of the way and the landscape really changed as we left Kamloops - not mountainous anymore and much more arid.  

We kept the drinks flowing from here on in an attempt to drown out the noise of ‘that lot’ and also, I felt it important that I nursed my cold 😉.

It’s weird though, as much as you have to drink on this train, we’ve never really felt like we’ve had much to drink. I think they time it very well so you’re never really without a drink but actually not having them that often. Mind if we were necking them, I’m sure they’d get us more drinks more often but I do strongly suspect they also keep an eye on how drunk you’re getting. As they should do to be fair, they have all the other guests to consider not to mention your safety. But we never tested that out! Told you we’re finally growing up!

Lunch was delicious again, I had the Tuna and veg and also asked for the polenta dish they had as I couldn’t decide between the two. Dan had Gnocchi. 

The bubbles were flowing by this time and ok despite what I said before, I might have been feeling a tad tiddly!! 

Time to kick the seat back, read my book and have a nap especially as we had hit an hour long standstill due to a broken rail in the track. 

They looked after us well during the delay and there was a train poem created where everyone had the opportunity to add a line or two (with something they had seen/experienced/read etc whilst on the train) to see what the end result was! It was pretty good actually. Some really funny comments and some overly profound and deep ones too.. 

Rail fixed and we were back on our way. Toot toot!! 

We saw where the Thompson river now merged with the Fraser river which was quite interesting to see as they don’t merge well initially due to different temperatures and different sediment mixes which make them look entirely different colours. 

The Fraser river is one of the main salmon run rivers in B.C with the Thompson river being a key subsidiary of that.

We saw lots of eagles along the way looking for fish - I tried to get a photo but it’s not so easy!! 

This was my best effort 

Before we knew it we were talking about the end of the trip. As we’d been delayed they rustled up a little pasta dish for us so we didn’t leave the train too hungry and made sure to top our glasses up!

We got into Vancouver around 7.30 and it was goodbyes all round and onto the coach to our hotel. I really truly loved the whole experience as did Dan. It feels so special and the people working on it - in any capacity - go out of their way to welcome you and make your trip memorable. The team at the stations always line up to wave you off and wave you in, the coach drivers are great fun and even when we went to pick up our welcome pack back in Jasper (did I tell you we got special badges in that pack..you didn’t have to wear them!) the lady there was so lovely. 

It’s definitely a very special experience. 

I did find I had ‘train legs’ though when I got off for the last time - where everything felt like I was walking through treacle and when I closed my eyes it felt like I could see everything whizzing past me! 

Or maybe I was a bit more tiddly than I’ve led myself to believe hahaha!! 

At the hotel in no time. This time we had to drag our own luggage round as we’re not staying at one of their ‘sister’ hotels but we are one block away from a main drop off point so it’s no bother. But to be fair, they did say that if it was bad rain or anything to have a chat with someone when we’re disembarking and they’d see if it could be arranged to drop us at the hotel. We’re at the Auberge Hotel this time over by the harbour. It’s a nice hotel and we have a great room - for all we’ll see of it! 

First job, after check in, was to race back out to buy a new suitcase as somehow we can no longer fit all our clothes in the cases we brought them in 🤷🏼‍♀️.

We do need a new medium sized one anyway and as we have loads of baggage allowance we thought we might as well! 

One new suitcase later we dropped it back at the hotel and went for a last couple at The Lions Bar, which is on the same block as the hotel so it was just the easiest option rather than the most desired option. Nice place, don’t get me wrong but we threw no thought at it. 

I was going very downhill now and so I bailed out partway through and headed back to the hotel leaving Dan to make a new Vancouver friend!! He got back to the room about an hour later just as I was dropping off! 

And that is almost it now. Our flight is at 5.45pm Saturday so we just have a few hours to spend in Vancouver in the morning , in the rain and then we will have to head home……