What time is it there?!

The day started very early with a hotel check out at 6.30am....! It was still dark. By the time we had checked in at the station the sun had begun to rise. The train sets off at just after 8am and we’re straight into more spectacular scenery. (Nikky excels herself by staying awake the entire time despite the 5:30am alarm call!)

When we were picked up from the hotel in the morning someone had made a remark to the bus driver about falling asleep later on the train. His response had been that we wouldn’t have time to fall asleep because “they feed you all day on the train”. We soon discovered that he hadn’t been joking. (Apologies to those of you who have been travelling on dodgy overnight buses in South America recently, but this was the complete opposite).

We were fortunate to be the last carriage on the train today. This meant that when the driver spotted wildlife and called the crew in each carriage, we had plenty of time to react. That was the theory anyway. In reality, we have a couple of blurred photos that really, really were moose even though they may look like brown blobs to the untrained eye! Shortly afterwards a bear was spotted, but we didn’t even see this one so you’ve been spared the dodgy photo attempt.

Fortunately, 12,000ft mountains are much easier to photograph, as they tend to move more slowly than bears or moose. Hopefully some of the photographs will give a good idea of the scenery. I’m not sure that the pictures convey the scale of everything all that well, so if you don’t believe us you’ll have to come and see for yourself! (or check out the professional photos on www.rockymountaineer.com ).

The end of the first day brought us to the town of Kamloops. I think the town originally grew to support the railway, and although it still does this it also seems to be trying to establish itself as some kind of golfing destination (there is some flat ground!).

As with all things around here it’s BIG. The population is about 85,000 but these people are apparently spread across an area the size of New York City. One of it’s other big industries is the Rocky Mountaineer itself. It brings around 75,000 visitors every year (all of whom have an overnight stay), a number which is increasing every year to the extent that the Rocky Mountaineer company has recently bought one of the local hotels.

All of this (and the maintenance of the trains etc.) brings something like $30 million to the local economy each year. Maybe we should try this in England..... since the trains run so slowly anyway, let’s just make it a ‘feature’ and fill the trains with tourists!