The Rocky Mountaineer - Vancouver to Kamloops

I have alluded to the Rocky Mountaineer since before we set off from Australia.
I have been a bit of a train nut since I was young, so it appealed to me, but the scenery is breath taking in parts.
It's a little bit on the expensive side, but you still have to do it once in your life.
We took the more expensive option to go with what they call the "Gold Leaf" service. What this means, is that you sit in the top of the dome top cars (pictured at the front of the train) & get waited on hand & foot the whole time. When it is time for breakfast or lunch, you head down to the lower level to the dining room. The food was awesome! Full gourmet (and I don't mean French for small) delicious and brilliantly presented, & also plenty of it. You still get a better view in the dining area than you do from a Red leaf car (single level) as the windows are bigger. Upstairs you get the full bar service along with commentary during the journey.

Harrison Lake

The Rocky Mountaineer trip starts in Vancouver (Canadian West coast). Vancouver is situated at the mouth of the Fraser River where the vast amount of water collected in the western part of the mountains meets the sea. The train first heads east, along side the Fraser River heading toward the Canadian Rocky Mountains.

Slightly upriver from Vancouver, Harrison Lake (pictured) spurs off the main river. This picture only shows the branch point. The main lake actually runs way up to the north.
Not far after Harrison Lake, the train takes a left hand turn & heads north through the gorges.

Hell's Gate

Hell's gate in Fraser's Canyon is the narrowest point of the Fraser River.
The volume of water rushing through this one spot is incredible! They had to build fish ladders for the salmon after building the bridge because the current was too great for them.
As an aside, the Train slows down to "Kodak speed" for places of major interest along the way. It's great because you get to take some good shots during the trip, rather than blurry trees with a bit of feature behind.

Below is just a shot taken along the Fraser river as the train follows its path through the coastal mountain ranges in British Columbia (B.C.). The town of Cisco is a little further to the north of this spot.

Just north of Cisco at a town called Lytton, the Fraser River is joined by the Thompson River (remember we are heading upstream). The Fraser River's source is far in the north of B.C. so the train follows the Thompson River to the east towards our night stop over, Kamloops. The Thompson River runs through a much more rugged & narrow gorge for the most part (see picture). Consequently the two rail lines that follow the river have had to be a bit more ingenious about how they negotiate the gorge. If you expand the picture you will see the freight train winding its way through tunnels & over small bridges. Quite an engineering feat aside from the fantastic scenery. This shot is semi typical for nearly 100kms. The trip just seemed to get better as we went deeper into the mountains.

Black Canyon

Black Canyon's name origin is fairly obvious (see pic below). It's the far northern part of the north bound section of the journey. The Thompson River winds itself through this canyon from its head, Kamloops Lake. It's quite a spectacular part of the trip with the train crossing the river a bunch of times & going through at least as many tunnels. Notice the angry river in the foreground & the bridge we had just come across heading straight into the hillside & a into a tunnel.

One of the advantages of being on a train journey is that you can always make a fairly mundane shot a bit interesting by adding a train. This shot was taken on one of the many Thompson River bridges in Black Canyon.

Notice the standard rail cars that are the "Red Leaf" option. No domed glass tops on those ones! Believe me, it's worth the extra money to go Gold Class.

I am actually quite proud of this one. Not a great shot & I have better, but I like it all the same. It's just a pity the clouds came over & spoiled it a bit.

Kamloops Lake

The Thompson River head is Kamloops Lake (below) & is fed by the South & North Thompson Rivers. It is interesting to see how wide & calm the lake is compared to the snarling river below on its way to Vancouver. This wasn't the most exciting part of the trip, but the contrast made it worthwhile.

Kamloops is a town of about 300,000 people spread across a very wide area of land. It doesn't really matter how big the town is, you are always going to get the odd crazy that does something weird. I've seen plenty of tents in the back yards of Australia, but this one is just taking the piss!
You will also notice the pipeline & stack in the background billowing smoke. Apparently it's great for getting rid of the smoke from Kamloops, but the occupants of the neighbouring town aren't overly fussed about it.

The train stops in Kamloops over night so you don't miss any of the scenery. The town didn't impress me that much, but we didn't see any trouble, & we got a good night's sleep. It had the feel of many semi-remote towns in Australia. Nothing particularly wrong with it, but just doesn't have the feel of a place that you would go out of your way to see. This shot is the most picturesque part of town & it's right next to the railway line & I wouldn't be surprised if it's owned by Rocky Mountaineer.
The train of 31 cars was split in two over night. Our half was destined for Calgary & the other for Jasper. I don't know too much about the Jasper trip, but I imagine it was at least as good as our journey, maybe even better. We will definitely drive into some of that country during the next two years.

Grouse Mountain

On the day we had to explore Vancouver, we took the Sky-Train, Sea-Bus & regular bus to Grouse Mountain. The Train is very slick (more on that later) & the Sea bus is the most incredibly efficient ferry service I have ever seen. Very slick!

In winter Grouse Mountain is a ski park with 4 cable cars (pictured) that run up to the top of the mountain. In summer they have other activities & shows to keep Joe tourist occupies & charge them $32 for the lift ticket.
It occurred to me that the cable car looked a lot like one I rode up to the summit of Mt Pilatus in Switzerland some years ago. I stepped into the car & saw a sign saying "Made in Switzerland". Funny that!

This is the view from Grouse Mountain. This picture was taken from the cable car just after clearing the support poles at the top.

One of the attractions at Grouse Mountain is the Grizzly Bear exhibit. It is actually an experiment the Canadian wildlife protection group are trying to rehabilitate & eventually release orphaned bears. It just happens to be a great way for the public to see the bears, These two males are about 5 years old now & even hibernate in the enclosure which is rare for captive bears.
Our first wild bear sighting will have to wait.

Grouse Mountain also has a lumberjack show. It is really quite entertaining, but a bit touristy.
They had two lumberjacks competing against each other in events such as the climb & chop (pictured), axe throw, log saw, Pole climb (next entry) and log roll. (I'm actually not too sure of the name of some of the events.) All the standard stuff, but worth a giggle.
Grouse Mountain also has a lumberjack show. It is really quite entertaining, but a bit touristy.
They had two lumberjacks competing against each other in events such as the climb & chop (pictured), axe throw, log saw, Pole climb (next entry) and log roll. (I'm actually not too sure of the name of some of the events.) All the standard stuff, but worth a giggle.

These guys are nutty! That is a long way up & they were motoring!

The other attraction on the mountain showed off their birds of prey. If you are into birds of prey it was pretty good. Kerri wasn't so keen. Each to their own. I enjoyed it.

I threw this one in for mum, who has a special interest in owls.

Stanley Park

After the Grouse Mountain visit, we had a bit of a wonder around the Downtown shoreline. It's actually a very relaxing spot. There are parks that run alongside the river that you can just sit & relax or there are bike tracks & walk tracks if you feel a bit more energetic.
The backdrop is really quite nice. (See pic). Stanley park is in the foreground. It is a huge patch of parkland with all sorts of things to do & see. We only scratched the surface. It's something we'll do one time we go back to see B.C. properly. Pictured behind Stanley Park is Grouse mountain (right of picture) & the ranges. If you expand the photo & look closely, you will see the summit & the cable car that runs middle to top right of picture.
Vancouver is a pretty place, but the city has become too big for its surroundings. There are 2.5 mil people there now. The problem is the river takes up a heap of area & the mountains jag up so sharply that you can't build anywhere anymore.

I'm not too sure about this ...... piece of art, I guess you call it. I thought it was amusing so I took a pic of it. It sits between the Vancouver Downtown & the river front.
These Canadians are claisey! (Not really, they are nice folk over here).

The tourist shops are just as bad as anywhere else in the world. Check out this merchandising ploy.
They have an obsession with killing animals & sticking them on their heads over here. (I guess we do in Australia as well.)

No, you can't take him with us!
Kerri took a liking to this bear at the front of one of the tourist shops. She wanted to take him with us & then send it back to her mum. Fortunately he wasn't for sale. The freight costs would have been horrendous! It would have been a great gag having him sit next to us on the train trip over to Calgary.

Vancouver Skytrain

Before I leave Vancouver behind & start on about the Rocky Mountaineer, I mentioned the Vancouver Skytrain before. These run about every 3-4 minutes around Vancouver, & they're fast! The freaky thing about these trains is that they don't have a driver!!! They're all controlled by a central control room. It must be like running a gigantic model train set. Bad news if you get it wrong!

As for most major cities around the world, they look much nicer at night. The photo below was taken around 11pm from our hotel. Bloody twilight near the Arctic Circle! Doesn't make it easy to sleep! I'm sure we will learn to live with it. The 6 hrs of daylight in the middle if winter could be less of a novelty.

Vancouver

Today we made our last flight of the trip to Vancouver. It was a pretty daytime flight above the USA Rocky Mountains in a very nice little 120 seat jet that Air Canada flies, an Embraer 190. They are very new & comfortable with the full electronic entertainment system in the back of the head rest as on many of the long haul jets. The flight was only 90 Min's. Can't wait for another trip on one of these.

I'm liking Canada already, although we had a bit of a rocky start.
A couple of nights before we left San Fran, I had discovered that I had not bought a copy of my University qualification which had been an "essential" document for a work permit. So I was stressing for two days & was sleep deprived going into Canada. It turns out that the Immigration officer wasn't too interested in the paper work, but was more concerned about Kerri trying to piggy back off my permit. Maybe it distracted her, but luckily her fellow officer beside her set her straight & it just took time to process the application.
The trouble started when we tried leaving the airport. We had had some success with Airport Shuttles to & from SFO, so we thought we would try it here. Big mistake! Instead of a 9 seater van, it was a coach & it took us 2 hrs to get to the hotel. They were not very cheap & complete rubbish! Not again! Taxi next time. The airport here is spitting distance from downtown.
We are here now & really excited! Canada is a beautiful place.

Our hotel is really nice. We are paying for the privilege a bit.
Off to explore tomorrow, then on the train the next day. Can't wait!
Did I say Vancouver is really nice? Oh, & the sun doesn't set until 10pm (I guess.). We haven't seen full darkness yet.

Last Day in San Francisco

Today has been pretty cruisy. It's our last full day in town & we have done pretty much all we set out to do & see. The Civic Centre & Alamo Square were the last couple on the list & we ticked them off today.
Alamo square is a bit away to the West of the CBD & is perched up on a fairly high hill top. There's a nice park square (Alamo Square) and around it, all the houses are very nice, including this set pictured, known as "Postcard Row". They must cost a bomb to maintain & you wouldn't want to be much of a private person to live there. (A bit like Lombard St I imagine).

This is yet another American building trying to look like 15th century Europe. This is the Civic Centre. Very clean & fancy, but nothing much seems to happen there except the homeless people sleep out front in the garden areas.

Tomorrow it will be goodbye to The Mayflower Hotel, San Francisco & the USA.
It's our last night in this quaint but beautiful hotel in the heart of San Francisco. It will be sad to leave, but there are a stack more exciting adventures to be had in Canada.

We have to be up before 5 in the morning to get on an early flight to Vancouver. Our last flight of our intrepid journey. The final leg of the trip to Calgary will be a 2 day train trip through the Rocky Mountains until we reach our final destination.

Alcatraz

Today we did the Alcatraz Cruise & Tour. It's a tourist hot spot to say the least, but well worth the trip. There is much to see on the island including a video of the history of the island dating back to the 1800s & the gold rush days. The Island is also a rookery for sea birds as it was before Europeans trashed it to build a fortress.

The main part of the Alcatraz tour is the self guided audio tour of the cell block. It was very interesting & they have actually done it quite well. The shot above was as close to a picture without tourists as I could get.

One of the interesting parts of the tour was the cells for solitary confinement. This photo was taken of such a cell, but it obviously doesn't tell the story. Inside these cells it is pitch black! Hence the nickname, "The Hole".

Something that hadn't occurred to me about Alcatraz until the tour, was the tantalising reminder that freedom & the vibrant city of San Francisco lies only a mile away from the prison island. The prisoners could see it clearly night & day, & could even here to sounds on some nights. No wonder they wanted to escape so badly. There is no evidence anyone ever did, although three guys were never found. Legend has it that they fled to Mexico.

And the prison had this brilliant old fire truck. Apparently $90k USD to restore! It does look a treat though.
Wouldn't the wiggles be jealous?!

After the Alcatraz tour, we headed to the Cable car Museum. It is part museum & part operating power house for the cable cars. Yes, I finally figured it out! All the cable car lines (effectively there are 4) are powered by these 4 electric motors in the power house. There are 4 continuous cable loops that run around the city and all come back to the same point.
The museum explained how it all worked & had some great little exhibits. I guess it played to my mechanical engineering background. Very glad I had a look.

Peir 39

San Francisco's merchandising & tourist trap No. 1. Fisherman's Wharf & Pier 39. It is just so corny to describe. Fisherman's Wharf is all about selling T-shirts & Fridge magnets on one side of the road & dodgy food vendors on the Bay side. Pier 39 is much the same but more up market merchandising stores & a bunch of slightly better places to eat.
The Island pictured isn't actually an Island. It is a floating mock up of an island. As the pontoon rocks, so does the light house & the palm trees.

Pier 39 (below) does have one saving grace, it's resident sea lion population. I have no idea why they have taken up residence here, but they seem happy enough. It is very surprising to see them so close to so much human activity. That is Alcatraz in the background.

The seals seem to sleep a lot, but you wonder how considering how much squabbling goes on in the colony for real estate.

We took a cruise from Pier 39 out around the bay including an up close & personal look at the Golden Gate bridge & Alcatraz. So we walked the bridge the previous day & we did the Alcatraz tour today. Didn't matter. We got a different perspective of those two land marks & had a look around the other parts of the bay.

Toward the Cruise we also got up close to Alcatraz! It's a sinister looking place. More on that later.

After the Cruise, we had a better look at Pier 39 & had some lunch. The only place that was worth a good look was the Wyland Gallery. (It's more of a sales outlet really). This guy is good! He does coloured bronze sculptures, paintings & photos.
The photos don't do the pieces justice, particularly the one below.

After the bay cruise and the nosey around Pier 39, we caught the bus up to Telegraph hill. The hill has a strange looking tower on it called Coit Tower (Strange name as well. Named after the lady who commissioned it I think). The tower is fairly uninteresting, but the view from the top of the hill is pretty nice. You can see most of the city & bay, pretty much unobstructed. The following pictures tell the story. This one is of the Bay Bridge.

Below is an arty shot of the bay bridge I took from Telegraph hill.

The Bay Bridge should attract more attention than the Golden gate bridge when you compare them side by side. The Bay Bridge is longer, taller & carries more traffic than the Golden Gate. I suspect that the Golden Gate is the centre of attention because it's RED! (I would think that the fact that it was built at the entrance to the bay & quite a bit earlier has something to do with it too.) The Bay Bridge carries it's traffic on two separate levels as opposed to the Golden Gate's single level.

I have already posted a photo of Lombard street up close, but this is a shot from Telegraph Hill. You will notice the wiggly street just to the right of centre of this shot.

This could be anywhere in San Francisco's CBD. It just happens to be the street that leads up to Telegraph Hill.

Below is the Fairmount Hotel on Nob Hill. Nob Hill is pretty much the highest point of San Francisco's CBD. There is a park square in the middle & it's surrounded on 3 sides by a bunch of very swank, very expensive hotels. The Western side is bordered by Grace Cathedral (See next entry).

Below is Grace Cathedral. If I was in Europe (Paris in particular) I could swear that this is Notre-Dame, but cleaner, with no scaffold & seems to be lacking just a touch of intricacy in the stone work. Even the gargoyles at the top of the spire look the same, but less broken. (Not pictured) The only thing that appears to be missing is the flying buttresses.
The Yanks like to copy stuff from Europe so they don't have to travel out of the US to see it! (eg. The White House, which looks like the Popes joint or St Paul's in London.) Idiots! No wonder they think Kangaroos jump around in our back yards
P.S. before you write to me & tell me you DO have kangaroos jumping around in your back yard; I know but you get my drift.

Western Gulls.

Seagulls in Australia annoy me nearly as much as pigeons. They are noisy scavengers that crap everywhere. Northern California seems to have an extra level of trouble in that respect. These ones are louder, more aggressive & there are more of them.

Oh and another thing. THEY'RE HUGE!!


They are at least twice the size/weight of you run of the mill Aussie gull. The photo doesn't show the perspective, but believe me, they are big! And what's worse, Alcatraz Island is now a protected rockery for the blighters!

They have a habit of getting themselves into your photos as well. I've had at least two shots spoiled by these guys.

The Golden Gate Bridge

We rode the cable cars today (among other things). The trick is to hang off the sides and have a good look around & in front (have a look in the photo to see what I mean. They are actually a pretty efficient way to get around the city.

I had originally thought that they were electric powered with a 3rd rail in the middle to conduct the electricity. And why were they called cable cars? Turns out that there is a slot in the road with metal covers that conceal a metal wire rope that is pulled by some unseen mechanism. (I assume under the roads somewhere. Haven't figure that one out yet.) The cable car itself actually has no motor of any kind, it just grabs onto the rope & gets hauled around by the cable.

They are very interesting, lots of fun & apparently the only ones operational in the world.

The San Francisco F-Line Street Cars (We Aussies would call them Trams). These are a bit odd because the City Of San Francisco has bought old trams from around the world & run them here as a tourist attraction. Consequentially, there is a mixture of very different looking trams running the same route. They almost seem out of place at times.
Riding the Trams to & from Fisherman's Wharf & Pier 39 seemed like a good idea at the time, but they seem to get chockers full of tourists & local weirdos! Yesterday (Monday, Remembrance day) the Tram was loaded & we thought it was just because of the long weekend. Nup! This morning was just as crowded and included some dead set freaks. It's also quite slow & we've found it quicker to get around on the Cable Cars. Besides, you can't hang off the side of the tram.

Lombard St

This street would be fairly recognizable to pretty much anyone who has seen a movie based in San Fran. If you owned a house in this street, you would have to be filthy rice & more than a bit of a show off. Not my thing.

 The Golden Gate Bridge

This is the classic been there & done that shot in San Francisco.
Yesterday (Mon) we walked across the bridge. Quite a hike & the wind coming into the San Francisco bay was bitter (even though it's summer here). The strangest thing I noticed was the fog/cloud coming in from the sea, seemed to dissipate almost straight after it passed over the bridge.

Saucalito

After we had walked across the bridge, rather than brave the icy breeze back to San Fran, we walked another mile down the road to Saucalito. It's a seaside town/suburb on the far side of the bay from San Fran. There are no high rise & has some very pretty houses & shop fronts. The house below is a fairly good example. Sausalito is quite touristy, but well worth a look.

Off to San Francisco

Finally we got away from the tourist trap of Honolulu this morning. It had been a good stay, but we were done.

The five hour flight to San Francisco was uneventful, which in light of recent events, is a good thing. United Airlines do have an extra bit of leg room in the Boeing 767 which makes all the difference on the longer flights.

We arrived safe & sound and on time in San Francisco around 3.30pm. (although the driver of the shuttle van nearly made us sick with his on & off accelerator technique that made the ride more like a rocking ship than a car.
The hotel is nice & has the Frisco feel to it. It's in a good position & has a nice view (below).
We already purchased a week Tram pass ($24 US) that should sort out our transport for the 5 days we are here. We rode the Cable Car up Powell Street straight after purchasing the tickets. It's very cool!

More on that tomorrow with some photos after we have done some exploring & taken some pics.
This place has a really good vibe compared with Hawaii, but you do have to be a bit careful with beggars & potential for pick pockets & bag snatchers. It's not too bad, but you just have to be careful.

Manoa Falls

Today we hiked up to Manoa Falls, just up behind Waikiki. You can catch the bus up to the start of the trail & walk about 30 minutes or so to reach the falls. It was surprisingly low in tourists considering how pretty the walk was. The only down side was the mud on the trail. Maybe that explains the lack of tourists.

The trail leading to Manoa falls is almost worth the walk on its own. There were about a dozen shots like this that we could have taken along the trail. This area is what I expected Hawaii to look like, & a fair chunk of Oahu is, I guess. It's just hard to get at.