Vancouver to Banff

  Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Thursday, May 8, 2008

View from our Vancouver hotel room

Monday 5th May 2008
Alison: After an exhausting plane journey it was nice to arrive in Vancouver and discover our room was immediately available. We had intentions of getting out and about but were just too exhausted to do anything much. I managed to get a load of washing done in the hotel guest laundry  - what a bonus - and we had lunch and a swim in the hotel, but then just crashed relatively early as we had to be up at 6.00 to catch a taxi to the Rocky Mountaineer train station the next day...
Mike: A weird feeling arriving on the morning of the day we had left Japan in the evening of! ... but we soldiered through a sleep deprivation to try and get ourselves back in sync. I was immediately struck by the obvious and massive differences between the place we'd come from and the place we'd come to, with Canadian people being effusive, relaxed and warm in a way far more familiar to us than the Japanese way. Always a harsh judge of service I was blown away by the reception and service we received from all the various staff at our hotel which, while possibly partly explained by the reliance of hospitality staff on tips or gratuities, seemed to run deeper than that and reflect natural friendliness. It was nice to lie low and recharge for the day before we reembarked on our big adventure into new and unexplored territories.

Tuesday 6th May
Rachel: On Tuesday we had to get up really early to get to the train station so that we could catch the Rocky Mountaineer up to Banff. We all got given little red maple leaf badges to show that we were on Red Class and that we'd got our tickets. Tom and I both got little kids packs with cameras with 24 photos, a pen with a little bear on it that looked like a Mounty, and we got an activity book and binoculars. It takes two days so in order to get to Banff we had to take two all day trains. My dad was betting us that he'd spot at least 5 bears but on the first day we weren't in bear territory so we didn't see any bears but we saw lots of ospreys which are a type of bird. We also saw an eagle nest and some eagles. It was magnificent scenery and views out of the train. We took lots of photos.

Beatiful lake along our route

That night we got off the train and saw a lumberjack show after we'd checked into the hotel and got changed into warm things. A lumberjack show is men competing in wood chopping competitions. Lumberjacks are very strong people because they have to lift a lot of wood and chop and saw wood. They also have to climb up trees, putting planks in the little cuts they make with their axe and get up to the top of the tree and cut a piece of wood on top of it in half and then get down again. The reason they have to have good balance is because they have to stand on logs that are in the water which is really hard to do. We saw them do all these amazing events. Everybody in our family had something to do with the show.

Alison sawing on stage (far left)

My mum got to go onstage and had to saw a piece of wood in half with a lumberjack, but because it's a show the lumberjack my mum was with had to stop sawing properly so that the other pair won, but I guess that's how show business works! My dad had to time how long it took for the lumberjack to make a rabbit with his chainsaw and it was half a millisecond, but it was a really bad rabbit so it didn't count. The other lumberjack made a better bunny rabbit with it, but then he accidentally chopped off its head because he was having a temper tantrum. While he had been making it he had been doing some secret work at the back of the wood so when he chopped it off it turned into a chair - a very, very mini one though.

Our chair from the Lumberjack Show

The guy who made the chair asked if there were any children in the audience so we put our hands up and Tom shouted 'Me, me!' so we got to keep the chair, but unfortunately we had to throw it away because it is illegal to take fresh wood into Australia in case of termites or things like that. We had an awesome time at the Lumberjack Show.

Hell's Gate

Tom:  Today we went in a train called the ROCKY MOUNTAINEER. First the instructor  told us his name (Adam) , then he told us the safety rules. 1.      Don't walk on the aisle without shoes on.
2.      Children have to be under supervision at all times under 12 years old.

Our host Adam

When he finished the safety rules he served us breakfast.I had FROOT LOOPS, Bagels and some jam with it and for my drink I had some orange juice. Surprisingly it filled me up. After that I met all the people and they seemed pretty nice so I tried to talk nicely back to them and had a little chat. We saw some beautiful scenery and even some scenery had ospreys (bird) in the trees. Sometimes we saw eagle nests and also eagles flying. That night we saw a play called the Lumberjacks Show.

Irish duo entertaining us

First a man and a woman played some instruments. The man mainly played guitar and the woman mainly played the viola. They took about an hour to finish while we ate dinner and they kept on saying they liked us because Dad kept on going Woo hoo. We had a waitress called Terry. She had orange curly hair and lots of freckles on her nose. After we had dinner the people in the play all started getting ready. It started in a pub with two lumberjacks having a fight about girls and they were going to have a contest about who was the better lumberjack. The next morning Willy heard Johnny's rooster squawk and got out his shotgun and shot the rooster - it was actually quite effective! Our waitress and all the others were in Willy's house and it looked like he'd been smooching with all of them. We were barracking for Johnny in the competition.

Bear & cub crossing into forest

Wednesday 7th May
Rachel: On Wednesday we got on the train really early. That day the views were even more magnificent than before. We saw five bears that day, like my dad had said we would. It was really cute how we saw a little baby bear running up to its mother into the bush. It was nice when we finally got to Banff. We stayed in a hotel called the Caribou.

Mike: This voyage through the Rocky Mountains was one I'd always wanted to take and I was not disappointed. We were surrounded by a lovely bunch of people in our rail car varying wildly in age and nationality, with whom we formed a really fun bond by the end of the two days we shared. All in the know told us we had no chance of seeing bears but I assured them otherwise that I would most definitely bring the bears out of the woods! ... and lo and behold we were thrilled to encounter various bear sightings, one with cub in tow, which was just beautiful. Moose remained elusive, but suffice to say regardless I made the obligatory "Moose" exclamation on a regular basis just to keep all passengers on their toes! Arriving in our stopover hotel, imagine my delight and Alison's disdain that this was also the home of the local casino. After venturing out to our lumberjack show entertainment, which I was relieved was a lot of fun for the family rather than just toooo corny, we parted ways back at the hotel where I went off to try and fund our onward journey! Suffice to say I chose instead to ''make a donation'' to the local community!.. and in the process had a lot of fun meeting other local punters and trying a sample of the various local brews, which were much to my liking!
Alison: The whole train trip was great, with spectacular scenery which I have tried to capture in my photographs, a small sample of which I have included in this blog, and pleasant company. By the end of the journey we were bosom buddies with most of the others in our car, and our host Adam was delightful. As you can tell from the kids' entries, the Lumberjack Show was hilarious, with the whole family (being loud as we are!) pulled up on stage and/or starring. I even got pulled on stage to help Johnny saw a log in the competition, and we were winning until he deliberately kept the saw from cutting down - obviously the script called for him to lose that part! Their various skills were really most impressive and entertaining to watch. Having to be on the bus to the train at 6.20 after getting back to the hotel at 11.00, it was another night of insufficient sleep, exacerbated by Michael getting back from the casino about 1.30! At least the actual train trip the next day was not at all arduous, but every time I drifted off to sleep, someone would yell 'Bear!' or something else so I didn't really catch up on any. Still, the excitement of actually seeing some real live bears more than made up for it...

At a Western shop in Bannf

Thursday 8th May
Rachel: The next day after we arrived in Banff we went out to lunch at the Spaghetti Factory. I had lasagna. It was really yummy. We went shopping after lunch and got a jacket for Tom for in the snow. 
Alison: As usual I woke earlier than the rest of the crew and peeping out of our window at the Caribou Lodge was greeted by fluffy white snow drifting down onto the internal courtyard - what a bonus! The only thing was, we really didn't have appropriate clothes for wandering through the snow, so ended up heading into town and having a nice wander round for the afternoon, buying a few bits and pieces and ending up at a great place for dinner recommended by our Calgary friend Geoff. Then we headed back for an early night as we were catching a taxi to Sunshine the next day, as early as we could get our act together...

Banff

Mike: On arrival in Banff we were greeted by a gorgeous mountain town which seemed to largely comprise a succession of picturesque and gorgeous/cosy lodges of various styles. I was pleasantly surprised, on choosing to eat in for the night, to be the recipient of one magnificent fillet steak, as good a meal as I had enjoyed anywhere on this trip, which is saying something! After the obligatory trip to the hot tub with the children it was a magnificent feeling to wake the next morning to fresh falling snow, and what was already a picturesque quaint town, was transformed into a magical snowtopped fairyland. A relaxing day wandering Banff was enhanced by the knowledge that the next morning we would wander up the mountain to enjoy the fruits of this unseasonal snowfall which we had managed to bring with us.