Author: keith

Since the food was generally extremely good in Canada, I thought a post to share the best places we ate would be worthwhile.

Toronto
Flippers – excellent breakfast, with soufflé pancakes being the highlight.

Banff
Farm & Fire – the pizzas here are extremely good, with plentiful and unusual toppings.
Sky Bistro – locally sourced menu which is made up from whatever is possible to get to the top of a mountain, cooked beautifully.
Three Bears Brewery – fantastic burgers, probably the best of the holiday, with local beers which you can order a sampler of 6 to save deciding which to choose!
Bluebird – we had breakfast, which was excellent (particularly the eggs benedict), but they also do a dinner menu.

Field
Evil Dave’s Grill – very small restaurant, be prepared to queue, but well worth waiting. The raspberry pie is exceptional.

Jasper
Famoso – a pizzeria of sorts, but the chicken wings are incredible.
Bear Paw’s Bakery – Canada seems very good at cakes, but this bakery was exceptional. Their sandwiches are also very, very good.
Estío – a sort of Jamaican vibe, the food is varied but excellent and the toasties the highlight.
Olive – upmarket restaurant, their Poutine was the best we had, laced with truffle.

Vancouver
Danbo – OMG. Ramen which was very, very close to what you’d get in Japan. Queue for 30 minutes if you have to, this was one of the best meals we had.
Breka – another bakery, again with exceptional baked goods. Massive selection, the chocolate almond croissants were superb.
The Sauce Pasta – doesn’t look like much, but an authentic Italian with huge portions and amazing flavours. Don’t bother with the garlic bread, you won’t need it (and it’s the only thing we had that wasn’t worth it!)
Dante Italian Sandwich – proper Italian sandwiches, huge portions.
Kozak – Ukranian, everything was excellent. The sausage is made by the owner’s mother, and it’s incredible.

Tofino
Tacofino – the original one (we also tried one in Vancouver). Fish taco was amazing, but most of the other dishes, including the watermelon and basil slushie, were exceptional.
Shelter – very nice restaurant with excellent food, the chuck was incredible.
Rhino – great but always busy café, the breakfast wraps were huge and amazing.
Big Daddy’s – sort of fish and chips, done casually. Extremely good, particularly the shrimp and chowder.

Victoria
Block – superb Japanese-inspired restaurant done in a tapas style. All extremely good, the Tokyo fries were excellent, as was the okonomiyaki.

When we were waiting for our food in the Ukranian restaurant we identified our best and worst points of the holiday. Here they are!

Danny – he quickly decided his beef chuck at Shelter in Tofino was the best food he’d had, and he’d enjoyed seeing bears the most. However, he said he hadn’t got any sleep (perhaps a slight exaggeration) and that this was the worst thing about the trip.

Mila – rafting was her highlight of things we did, and ramen at Danbo was her favourite meal (excellent choice as it was nearly as good as ramen we had in Japan). However, despite spending 45 minutes in a charity shop, the lack of “thrifting” was her worst thing.

Jo – obviously her choices are wildlife heavy. The sea otter was her highlight, as well as the Boston Cream doughnut(s) she had from Neate Donuts. Unfortunately our inability to see sea wolves (whatever they are) were her worst thing.

Keith – for me, seeing the Orca as we did was incredible, and a rare thing for anyone to see. I also think the ramen at Danbo was the best food (hard to pick though as we had some amazing food), but the bed on the train was clearly designed for midgets and I didn’t enjoy it at all.

First stop of the day, Jo and I walked to the good coffee and doughnut café we’d previously found a week earlier, to collect a snack for the airport. A nice 45 minute walk in the morning sun to Neate Donuts, with excellent coffee and a box of doughnuts, was a good start to the day. The coffee gets a picture by itself, it was that good.

We then headed down 8 floors to the hotel “restaurant” by which I mean a small conference room with a very small selection of not even close to the advertised continental fare (4 cereals, yoghurt pots, toast, small selection of fruit, small selection of pastries/muffins). It was rubbish, made worse because we sat at a table in the corridor between meeting rooms!! Appalling in every way, not a good hotel (see blog review for more).

We finished packing, checked out and ordered an Uber to the airport. We checked in to the flights with a person, as apparently we couldn’t do what 95% of other passengers were doing checking themselves in with the machine. Still not sure why, but our luggage got PRIORITY tags so perhaps only the person can issue that. Unclear. Our boarding passes were similarly PRIORITY. Perhaps they knew who we were.

Once through security (yes, I kept my 100% record of having my bag forensically analysed by latex-covered hands) we went to the gate and ate our doughnuts – 2 Boston cream, 1 raspberry with sprinkles and 1 ring.

Before long we were in the ridiculous scrum of people to be put on the plane, despite being famous passengers, and we took our seats – Premium Economy on the way back as we wanted to sleep. And because we’re famous.

Our drinks and meal arrived quickly, and the food was actually very good. After 4 hours we were ready to land in Toronto to change onto the Manchester flight, which left just 1 hour 40 minutes later.

Except it didn’t as it was delayed almost 4 hours. New departure time 1am Toronto time. At least we got meal vouchers, which allowed us to get some free food whilst waiting. It wasn’t bad at all.

The flight didn’t leave until about 1.30am. They had to bring a plane from a domestic stand by towing it, then they had to check it was cleaned, cater it, and the crew had to prepare and check it. It’s unclear why they couldn’t have done that in the many hours they had spare, especially as one of the crew told us he’d been at the airport for 7 hours by the time we boarded.

Once underway it was a quick flight, less than the 7.5 hours predicted. This time we didn’t eat the main meal, it was all about trying to sleep…mostly unsuccessfully. Eventually we arrived home at around 3pm.

Rather than return to Vancouver by sea plane we were booked on the morning coach and ferry crossing. We picked up more baked goods from the hotel’s in-house café/bakery (the closest for a long distance, apparently) and headed off for a short walk to the bus depot. Whilst waiting we ate some very nice pastries – top left is a chocolate almond croissant, something the Canadians seem very capable of baking to a high standard.

Before long Bob turned up, moving his checking-in trolley and scales into place. You could just tell he was not your average coach driver… His first customers victims were family whose English wasn’t the best, and he sullenly tried to get them to do what he wanted them to do with their boarding passes, cases, etc.. He looked peeved.

It was our turn shortly after, and perhaps because we (I) had been cheery with him his mood seemed to improve a bit and we weighed our bags, he tagged them, and we put them by the coach ready for loading and got on.

On the way to the port he shared some stories and anecdotes about the area we were travelling through, which seemed to be linked to his military background, or his relatives’ similar career choice. He referred to them all as “interesting facts from Bob the bus driver”. Turns out he used to be in the Canadian artillery, but when I pressed him for more information (I was sat on the front row as usual, for the legroom) he only offered that he’d been given all the rubbish assignments and that someone must have hated him. His facts, more accurately the way he presented them, were (for me at least) very entertaining. He then let slip he’d been a long distance truck driver. Something tells me Bob’s mouth had got him into trouble at some point in his past….

Just as were driving out of the suburbs of Victoria Bob said – “I invite you to listen to some music, read a book, or stare aimlessly out of the window, like I have to do”. That sums up his style of contribution to the journey. When we arrived at our stop (having agreed with him we’d get off a stop early, and he’d moved our luggage accordingly) he had a bit of an argument with other passengers who’d decided they’d also like to get off the bus. He refused and said their luggage, because it was in the compartment it was, would be going to the final stop with or without them. Bob’s mouth had definitely got him into trouble in the past!

We walked the short distance to our next and final hotel, found lunch at an Italian sandwich shop (excellent food!!) and gelato for afterwards, then I went to collect our stored cases from the Times Square hotel we’d left them at (to reduce weight for the sea plane) and got an Uber back with the least communicative taxi driver ever.

We’d already booked dinner for 6:30 so we headed out for a walk around Gastown again, stopping by at The Lookout, Vancouver’s less impressive version of the CN Tower. The views were fine, there’s just less to see as Vancouver isn’t that big!

Our final transaction of the day was dinner – a Ukranian restaurant called Kozak, in Gastown. It came highly recommended and they didn’t disappoint. Unfortunately it was $10 cocktail night, so we didn’t miss out on that opportunity. We started with bread with garlic and cherry spreads, then Borsch with beef, and finally opted for a sharing board of all the various dishes they sell. It was fantastic and everything was delicious – sausage handmade by the owner’s mother, pierogies of 3 types, roasted and smoked lardo (pork and pork fat), latkes, sauerkraut, pickled vegetables, bread, and more.

On the walk back to the hotel we sadly saw too many homeless people, some smoking crack or injecting. It’s a sad part of Canadian city life it seems, as we’ve seen it in all the cities we’ve visited.

WARNING: This post contains A LOT of photos of whales, but none of Wales.

The main event today was a whale watching trip. We’d been moved to an afternoon boat, from the morning, then delayed around an hour. Some sloppy excuse about a broken engine.

Of course, before all of that we headed out for breakfast, this time a well rated diner. The food was good for some, less good for others. Then a gentle meander back into some of the shops we’d not had time for the day before – a thrift shop for Mila (whatever that is), a wooden jigsaw shop for Jo, a bookshop for Jo…..you get the idea….my phone battery almost died.

Then back to the hotel to collect optical devices (cameras, binoculars, sunglasses, etc….) before heading to Fisherman’s Wharf where the trip would begin – itself a picturesque floating village with large numbers of idiot tourists taking photos of themselves in Insta-poses (one leg cocked like a weeing dog, looking back over the shoulder, that kind of nonsense), most of them getting in my way.

Once suited up (a lot less impressive than the bear watching trip) we headed to the boat, pushed to the front (again) and headed out to sea. The (Salish) sea is actually the border between Canada and the US and a shipping lane. Our guides (Liam and Izzy) were very good explaining all about the animals we would be seeing, but didn’t promise anything, and the skipper Russ piloted the boat at mostly quite high speed. Izzy was from Wales and unfortunately when getting on the boat Jo made a joke about Newport, where Izzy was from, which she didn’t seem to like. From then on we were her targets, albeit nobody else seemed to talk to them so perhaps it was just because we were talking to them they engaged with us.

Before long we found our first sighting – a Canadian submarine on manoeuvres. It was a dinky thing, something Putin would probably not be too concerned about. Pretty cool to see though.

Our first stop was where Russ thought we might see some humpback whales. And boy did he deliver – they were all around us! Over the course of the next hour we saw around (I would guess) 10 individuals. Russ moved us around when they deep dived (tail, or fluke, in the air) as they would be gone for around 8 minutes but could surface anywhere. We saw so many doing their general surface… sink… surface…. then eventually deep diving with tail in the air. Photo bomb incoming….. but keep reading as there’s a lot more to say and see!

By this point we’d all seen a lot of humpbacks, so time to move on. Another 30 minutes or so towards the US coast we ended up in a bay and right there were a small number of Orca (killer whales). Then more appeared, around a couple of dozen in what’s called a “t-party” (the “t” meaning transient, as Orcas are transient not migratory) – a sort of social gathering of multiple matriarchal groups. Now, we thought this was pretty cool, but our guides were beside themselves. Apparently this is a super-rare event. We spent ages watching the group move together, the males playing with each other, lots of tail slapping and rolling. It was incredible to watch. To give a sense of scale, the big males’ dorsal (back) fin can be around 2m tall.

At one point a large police boat was heading top speed for the US coast straight into the path of the Orca, much to the guides’ disgust. We were only allowed to get within 200m of the Orca, the closest anyone is allowed (400m is usual) but the police clearly hadn’t seen them….then they did and stopped dead. Eventually the Orca glided right past them, and they clearly enjoyed it with their phones out videoing the event, before they motored off once the Orca had passed.

We then changed locations, found more humpbacks, seals, and the submarine (again), before heading back towards Victoria.

Back in Victoria and having missed lunch (late breakfast) we went into town to find pizza (which wasn’t enough, so we got kebabs too!) before heading back to the hotel.

Jo and I finished the evening with cocktails on the terrace of the hotel, and got to see a fantastic sunset.

A long drive back to Victoria today, but first a drive to Ucluelet, next nearest town to Tofino, for breakfast. After checking out of the hotel in Tofino, and on the way to Ucluelet, we quickly stopped at Long Beach for a look as the previous time we’d tried the car park was full, but early morning is obviously the right time as it was empty. We had a short walk on the beach, saw a newlywed couple being photographed (I assume the wedding was yesterday as it was 8:30am – either that or it was later today and he’s seen the dress).

Ucluelet was just another “surfer dude” town, and the café was full of young, blonde, tanned beach bums like ourselves. Breakfast was of course excellent with reasonable coffee – still nowhere near as good as the place in Vancouver.

Then the drive – in total about 5 hours plus stops. It rained for the first couple of hours, but as we neared our old friend Duncan (the town with the farm shop) it cleared up. We decided to stop for lunch at a fast food place, and A&W were chosen from the usual suspects (McDonalds, McDonalds, Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Pizza Hut) because it wasn’t usual for us. Weird menu – every meal was called after a relative – Papa, Mama, Teen, they were all there. Perhaps Duncan has six fingers and three toes and spends too much time with his cousin.

Each burger came in a little paper envelope, actually quite a clever idea, and the fizzy drinks in huge, heavy glass mugs. I chose a strawberry milkshake, which I doubted had ever seen cow juice. As you moved it in the plastic cup it seemed to move in a most peculiar, even alien, way.

Back in the car, we made a quick stop at Niagara Falls – not the famous one, this was apparently just as tall but it was clearly not as impressive.

Once back in the car we were just 30 minutes from Victoria, and after a slow drive through the city blocks we found the hotel in the harbour area. Quite nice.

We then needed a quick walk so headed to drop the hire car off in downtown Victoria (weird experience as the Avis office was (permanently) closed so it needed to be taken into an underground car park and the keys deposited in a safe on the wall by a car cleaning area! Let’s hope that’s right. We then wandered over to the whale watching dock as we’d had a message to say the morning boat was broken (sunk?) and so we’d be going tomorrow afternoon instead.

Then showers and dinner. Jo found Block, which served Japanese-styled tapas dishes, and it was probably the best food in Canada yet – even if their Okonomiyaki didn’t have quite enough cabbage! On the way back we stopped for ice cream – rolled for Mila, and a Split of Death for Jo and I.

A walk back to the hotel with illuminated harbour and museum finished the day off.

We’ve had some bad hire cars over the years, but this was one of, if not the, worst. The only good thing was the boot size. Otherwise it was underpowered, understeered on the gentlest of corners, had way too little power for the size of car, and wouldn’t park straight. The reversing guides on the screen were simply not straight, meaning you ended up parking wonky every time. I started to reverse with the door open to see the white line, it was that bad. Sorry if you’re a Jeep owner – bad decision.

A big day with our bear watching excursion just after lunch, so before a late brunch Jo and I walked to the coast on the lookout for seals. No seals, but we did find a few woodpeckers. Very hard to photograph as they move around a lot, and very quickly.

Just after noon we headed to the bear watching jetty, signed something saying if the boat sank it was our fault, got our float suits, and then got a map briefing. Then onto the boat. We sat at the front together, much to the disappointment of a young boy who’d barged past us to get to the front of the line, despite his mother’s half-hearted protestations. Silly boy. Once on the water it was just a matter of time until we saw anything but a bear. The first of many bald eagles, seals, and yet more bald eagles were our first finds.

Then a very lucky spot – a sea otter, who was cleaning itself floating upside down. Normal apparently.

A jellyfish with long tentacles and a heron followed…but still no bears – and we’d visited all of the guide’s usual spots, and the other boats had reported none seen.

Then, one of the people on our boat spotted something – a bear on a distant shore. We headed quickly to it, but then it was gone. Only a brief view of a male. We waited but it didn’t reappear.

We began to head back to Tofino, but then another bear was spotted, even further away than before. This time it was a female. and the guide thought it had cubs hidden in the forest, so he kept his distance. Other boats eventually arrived, we were there for a while watching it flipping rocks on the beach to find crabs and fish and other goodies.

To finish the trip, another seal and a large boat which looked like a research vessel.

For dinner we chose to continue the nautical theme, going to see Big Daddy who serves fish-related dishes. Fish and chips, battered prawns with apple slaw, and seafood chowder, then an ice cream from elsewhere. Mila and Danny did not want ice cream so they got sent ahead to avoid begging for ours.

A day of shorter walks was planned, so we fuelled on café breakfast (which included a breakfast sandwich inside a fried savoury doughnut!) and a box of 6 regular ring doughnuts for 6 Canadian Dollars (about £3) and headed towards Ucluelet on highway 4.

We stopped twice – once at Combers Beach and then at the Rainforest Trail. Both were forest walks, one ending in a wide open beach. Apart from the trees, a helicopter and a bald eagle flying overhead it was a pretty standard pair of walks.

We returned towards Tofino, stopping at the town outskirts for lunch at the original Tacofino. It seemed to be more of a tourist destination than a food place, with huge queues waiting for food. However, it was definitely worth it, and we had tacos, gringas and what they called “freshies” which were basically slushies. I had watermelon and basil, which sounds disgusting but is actually excellent. And fish tacos. We returned to the hotel to pause before the afternoon activity.

Our plan for the afternoon was to get a water taxi across to Meares Island, a semi-protected 20 square kilometre island about 10 minutes’ boat ride from Tofino. The island contains 2,000 year old trees, is entirely unmanaged, and is only accessible by boat. Kayak trips stop there, as does a taxi service. It’s not cheap, but worth it for the experience of walking for 2 hours through dense rainforest. There are some boardwalks, but these are made from fallen trees using axes and hand saws. We were lucky to see a blue jay, which was quite hard to photograph as it kept moving and hiding. It’s really hard to explain how big the trees are – some are vast, easily 5m diameter at the base of their trunks.

Back at the hotel with just enough time to shower before dinner, and this time a short walk to Shelter which had a great view over the water from our table. Excellent food and we watched the sunset and a sealion feeding just off the end of one of the piers!

Another day, another café breakfast, Vancouver’s excellent and 24 hour Breka again. Then a taxi to the seaplane terminal for our fight to Victoria on Vancouver Island.

Danny was particularly looking forward to the flight, so I’m sure the slow build-up and waiting for the pilot to saunter out to his charge helped. They stowed smaller bags without electronics in them in big plastic bags inside the dock-side float, then loaded the passengers. Our pilot was from Manchester, and the safety briefing was simple – he told me to turn the door handle clockwise and then push the hatch to open it; Danny got told the same about the one in the roof. Let’s hope we didn’t need to use them. Either way we had 2 seatbelts – the seat and the life-vest. Oh good.

As you’d expect the take-off on water was bumpy but once we achieved a plane on the water’s surface it became calmer. Since it was a light aircraft (10 passengers, 1 pilot) the 35 minute flight varied from bumpy to not, bumpier over coastline as the thermals worked. The landing was crazy – the angle he pointed the nose towards the water was reminiscent of Japanese kamikaze fighter pilots at Pearl Harbour. He avoided the massive ferry, and we had a longer than expected taxi back to the seaplane jetty.

We called an Uber once on the ground, as mysteriously our second hire car was not at the Avis office just 100m away…it was at the international airport 30km distant! Not great planning/forethought.

The 5 hour drive to Tofino should have been relatively uneventful with a few stops to look at interesting places. We paused to collect an in-car picnic from a farm shop near a town called Duncan, about an hour from our entrance to Vancouver Island at Victoria, then headed inland.

A couple of hours into the journey we began to see light smoke in the air, then there were warning signs, and police and park wardens were closing parking areas. We then came across a big wildfire at Cameron Lake, on Wesley Ridge. Helicopters were taking water out of the lake and dumping it on the hillside forest fire. We discovered the next day it was spreading fast, apparently caused by humans. Idiots, as there were signs everywhere saying NO FIRES because the risk was so high currently.

Unable to stop (not that we wanted to as the air was full of smoke, which you could smell immediately when opening a car window) we carried on to Cathedral Grove, where 800 year old Douglas Firs slowly grew. One tree had a 3m diameter.

A bit further on, with Jo doing some of the driving on this journey (her first time driving on the wrong side of the road), we stopped at Wally Creek and just after at the side of the road for a picturesque lake view.

We arrived at Tofino, a small fishing and tourist excursion town, in time for dinner (another burger for some). Lovely hotel with some really nice cafés and restaurants. Excellent, more food.

The plan for today was an exploration of Vancouver by water taxi. After breakfast from a bakery less than 2 minutes from our hotel, we headed to the nearest water taxi stop.

First stop was Granville Island. The main attraction was a large indoor market, with other smaller shops surrounding it, street artists, etc. After a wander round the various stalls and shops, where we saw fruit stall attendants seemingly creating anti-gravity cherry stacks, we decided to pick from numerous food stands for lunch, culminating with a HUGE slice of lemon meringue pie.

We got back on the water taxi, this time for a longer ride to nearly the end of the line to the Plaza of Nations.

From here we wandered towards Chinatown, stopping at a Chinese supermarket – they had, amongst lots of the usual live seafood, crabs from Dungeness! The architecture on this leg was as usual interesting, and we got a sneaky look into the football stadium through the back door.

Once in Gastown we had a wander around the varied shops, finding an interesting and very well stocked vinyl record store, some very nice cars, and an ice cream dipped in chocolate! When done we wandered back to the hotel.

To end the day we opted against the hotel’s recommended Italian restaurant and picked a very small Italian street food place. Half the price, double the quantity and incredibly good. And because we tipped for a takeaway, the owner gave us a free Tiramisu!

We began the day waking up on the train after not a lot of sleep. Mike told us we’d definitely arrive into Vancouver for 8.30am but of course that didn’t happen, as they needed to split the train into two for the station (no real explanation given, but it wasn’t because it was too long!) Whilst waiting we had breakfast, nothing special and it turned out to be far from the best food of the day.

After disembarking, collecting our bags and getting a taxi to the next hotel, Times Square Suites, it was 10.30am. Fortunately they had our room ready for us, so we spent an hour or two resting before lunch. The hotel in on the edge of the financial district, in a mostly residential area, but with lots of food places around it, so we have plenty of choice for meals.

For lunch we headed out to find Tacofino – and what a place! Food (Mexican) was incredible. Then we decided to wander over to the Coal Harbor Bay area, and quickly found a café that sold the most amazing doughnuts, and coffee made by an Australian who once almost lived in Manchester. He made the best decaf cappuccino I’ve had in Canada, by far.

A continued wander towards the harbour we saw some interesting architecture, a Minecraft-inspired orca, cargo ships, seaplanes taking off from their dock and other interesting things and wildlife – including a seal!

Our target for the afternoon was the “Fly Over” experience, this time for Canada. It turned out to be exactly the same as the one we did in Iceland, and was just as good. For the same money as the so-called planetarium experience it was 100 times better (and then some). With all that done, we headed back to the hotel in readiness for dinner. We decided we’d give a ramen restaurant a go since the area was full of potential venues. Jo found the one which got best reviews, and when we arrived the queue of Asian diners outside Danbo Ramen suggested it was worth it. And wow, it was incredible – easily the same quality broth as we’d had in Japan.

Jo and I finished the day with a walk to Beaver Lake, where we saw – a beaver (amongst other things). The walk back was after dusk and the sunset was pretty good.

Today we boarded The Canadian train, on the last day of its journey from Toronto to Vancouver, boarding at Jasper. An early start to check the luggage in meant we had plenty of time for breakfast since the train was already delayed – quite normal in Canada given the majority of rail traffic is goods trains.

Once we had eaten and packed our overnight bags, we returned to the station and shortly after arriving the train appeared. However, it needed to be cleaned which meant all passengers needed to get off for an hour. Plenty of time for taking pictures of trains!

The Canadian consists of 22 cars and engines (at least, this one did because it picked up an additional engine, making 3, which needed to be taken to Vancouver for repair) and has a mix of economy, sleeper and premium coaches, dining cars, and the famous glass roof areas – our train had 5 of these. At the back of the train is another viewing car.

Our coach (113) was attended by Mike, who was 28 years into his career with Via Rail, and had plans to retire – 2, 7 and 10. In 2 years he could retire with heavy penalties, in 7 years with a slap on the wrist and in 10 years with full pension. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to do, but would decided in 7 years.

Once onboard we found our two cabins (113 B and C) and spent long while investigating how capacious they were – or not.

We then headed towards the front of the train and found the dining car, with a free table for brunch – so we stopped here and ate. Not bad food actually, but then this was the dining car for those not in economy (who had to make do with a very simple menu from an onboard café).

The view from the windows varied, but seemed to have 2 themes – either immense views of mountains, or close-up rock faces (obviously of cuttings).

Once brunched we went to one of the viewing areas and grabbed a table for four at the front of the area, giving the best views ahead. At first the viewing areas seemed busy, but quickly people left and it was no trouble at all getting our preferred seats whenever we returned.

An afternoon watching the view whiled away the time until our dinner reservation at 5pm. The food was again pretty good, a three-course meal with wine. The strawberry cake was particularly good.

After dinner we returned to our viewing spot, played cards, watched it get dark and then planned to get off the train briefly at Kamloops – unfortunately we were still delayed so we decided to go to bed (rather than stand on a platform of a station in the dark, and probably surrounded by insects of the biting kind). We’d let Mike know we wanted our cabin turned into night mode, with beds readied and chairs stowed, so when we returned at 9ish we found the rooms ready for sleep. Unfortunately this meant there was virtually no room in the cabin to move. Nor, as I then found out, was there sufficient space to sleep for me, as the best was 180cm long – not sure where the remaining 14cm was meant to go. Not a lot of sleep was had….

We had two hire cars, each for around a week, and this was our first to transport us from Calgary to Jasper. On arrival at the Avis desk in Calgary they said there were no more cars of the type that had been booked for us (a medium-sized Ford of US-market derivation) so we were offered a pick-up instead, which would be an upgrade. Sounded good to me, so I agreed. Then we found it in the car park – you couldn’t miss it. An ENORMOUS GMC Sierra.

We quickly discovered that the rear load section was useless. It had no load cover, so we couldn’t use it. Instead we had to pile all the luggage and bags in the back seat area, meaning one in the back and three up front, with Jo being smallest being relegated to the fold-down seat in the middle. Apparently it wasn’t that comfortable, something I had no experience of as I was the only driver and my seat was fully electric with heating bottom and back. I had to keep adjusting it just to keep it comfortable and didn’t tell Jo about it (much).

Getting out of the airport car park was an experience but we slowly exited. At this point I discovered (and heard) the engine was quite large – a 5.3 litre petrol V8 – and pleasurably noisy. It wasn’t hugely quick but had plenty of torque meaning acceleration was more than adequate. We later discovered it hit 100km/h (60mph) in around 9 seconds, though Jo wasn’t happy to time me doing this.

We did discover probably its best feature – the noise it made on cold startup.

However, being an American vehicle, I soon discovered its rather significant downsides – it wandered side-to-side on straight roads (probably due to the tyre width), and was utterly incompetent on corners and offroad surfaces, despite being four-wheel drive. So from a driver’s perspective it was much harder work than driving at home.

The only other point of note was the fuelling cost – before leaving Lake Louise for our near 300km trip through the Icefield Parkway (where there was only one fuel station) we filled it up from around half full – 55 litres of fuel (so I guess well over 100 litre tank) costing about £43. That would make fuel prices in Canada around half that of home.

So, not the best hire car we’ve ever had but fun to try something different.

For our final day in Jasper we decided to do a hike in the morning before it became too hot (30 degrees C was forecast, and happened), then back to Jasper for lunch. We drove out to Pyramid Lake, took a look at the island, then headed up into the mosquito infested woods to see what wildlife we could find, and what views we could see.

Walking around and up Pyramid head we saw a variety of wildlife – a single bighorn sheep was the star, but we briefly saw several red squirrels and an osprey overhead.

On return to Jasper we went for toasted sandwiches and smoothies.

The hire car had to be returned by 5pm so Jo and I decided to head out towards Disaster Point (named after a problematic rail journey) to seek out sheep and/or goats. Success, we found a herd of all sizes on the rocks we’d not seen them on during our wildlife tour. On the way back we stopped at a vast floodplain of the Athabasca river which is less than knee deep across its full width. On the way back we came across a big truck fire at the side of the highway.

After returning the car to the drop-off point at Jasper station, and stopping for ice cream on the walk back to the hotel we started packing for our journey the next day, then we headed out for dinner.

After 9 days of calorie intake being greater than calories burned through exercise, Jo and I decided to go for a run before breakfast. We picked an out and back route north from the hotel in Jasper to the H.J. Moberly Bridge which is the first crossing point over the Athabasca River.

With an 8k run done, we went for a waffles breakfast – all had the same variation, with eggs, bacon, cheese and maple syrup. Jo also picked a banana and peanut butter smoothie.

Then a little stroll around town. Probably the biggest remaining sign of the huge wildfire that reached Jasper 12 months ago was a burned out petrol station. There were 4 in Jasper, now 2 remain. One exploded, this one didn’t but the damage is clearly severe. In total, 37,000 hectares of forest were destroyed.

Snacks and dinner followed – the Mr Big chocolate bar was mostly like a Kit-Kat crossed with a Picnic, but was huge. Clue is in the name.

On the way back from dinner, we came across a sign. Now, we have been having long debates about whether the term “handicapped” is still allowed, but apparently in Canada it is. We’re not so sure it should be.

After eating we headed off for our Jasper Dark Skies Planetarium Experience. That was $148 wasted. Utterly appalling waste of time, so saying no more about it.

That evening we decided to go for another drive up the Maligne Lake Road, given last night had been so successful. And wow, so much wildlife, more that the guided tour, with some serious close-up experiences. Before the wildlife though, we stopped at the Maligne Canyon to see for ourselves the extreme damage. It’s closed to all access, but you can see it from a viewpoint above.

Before long we spot our first wildlife, an elk and a mule deer on a ridgeline.

We stopped again at the bald eagle nest to try to see the adult and two young – we saw one of the youngsters in the nest calling (identified by Jo using Merlin), then both of them flying around in the distance, but little else other than a distant rainbow.

A little further on we saw the osprey nest again, no change from the previous visit.

Before long we saw mule deer which seem relatively plentiful in the area, and not at all afraid of visitors.

Then onto the main event. Moose. A seemingly young (or stupid) moose which kept testing a road sign, and wasn’t too impressed with it by the way it jumped back when it made a noise. After playing with it he (very) slowly crossed the road and began to feed on the other side.

We got some of this behaviour on video too!

After the moose we carried on up, then down from Maligne Lake and saw a white tailed deer very briefly before it disappeared, another moose with its calf drinking by a river, and a mule deer. A really good evening of looking for wildlife.

Today’s plan was simple – late breakfast, washing clothes, late lunch then a wildlife tour with a guide.

After breakfast, we stopped at the supermarket for snacks, and came across some enormous peaches. Next stop, washing clothes. After getting some cash and working out how the machines worked Jo and I had coffee, tea and cake to celebrate (or rather, whilst we waited). I watched the women’s Euros penalty shootout then updated the holiday spending accounts!

It wasn’t long before it was time for a late lunch/early dinner as our wildlife tour left the hotel at 5.15pm. We shared pizza and poutine.

The wildlife tour was led by a local guide who thought she was funnier than she was, and maybe didn’t realise she was as rude as she was. We weren’t the victims of her chatter as she failed to pick up people, received phone calls, then had to return to collect one particularly angry passenger who’d been to the toilet and missed being collected. Serves him right for being late!

The tour itself focused on the road into Jasper we’d travelled in on (where we only saw the elk we’d already seen) and the area up to Maligne Lake. The guide shared a literally constant stream of information for the 5 hours we were with her about wildlife, geology and the history of the area. Once on the road to Maligne Lake we saw a lot more – mule deer, bald eagles, a hoary marmot, a nesting osprey, and a pair of moose.

The views were pretty good too, especially as we were travelling back at sunset.

We arrived back after 10pm and ended the day with snacks, before bed.

We left Field after another tasty hotel breakfast, sat by their fire as it was a little colder this morning.

The plan for the day was a 4-5 hour drive along the Icefield Parkway, which connects Lake Louise with Jasper, and is the biggest non-polar icefield. After a quick stop at the spiral tunnel, where the long trains do two figure of 8 loops INSIDE the mountain, we stopped to collect some rations at Lake Louise, and fill up with fuel as there was only one filling station on the Parkway and was renowned for being very expensive!

The drive along the Parkway was punctuated with lakes, glaciers and waterfalls. We stopped to hike up to a couple of viewing points at Bow Lake and Peyto Lake first, finding an incredible wildflower meadow after taking a shortcut.

A little further on, we stopped at Waterfowl Lake, where numerous tourists in high heels and designer gear were taking posed photos of each other whilst we ate lunch. Clearly they were just stopping at roadside viewpoints for their Insta shots.

We then found a short hike to the incredible Mistaya Canyon with waterfalls and eddy pots. The noise was quite something.

A short stop at Howse Pass, we headed on to Sunwapta falls for more crazy powerful water action.

Another stop as Saskatchewan for coffee (appalling) we drove on via the main glacier in the area which they bus tourists onto (literally) – we elected not to take part in this activity due to the environmental damage it must cause. However, we did see a huge bald eagle soaring above.

On the approach to Jasper we began to see the damage the infamous wildfires caused a year ago – incredible to see vast swathes of land mostly devoid of life, with matchsticks poking up from the ground where trees had once stood. We did see some elk at the side of the road in a couple of places.

We arrived at our hotel shortly before we had a booking at Evil Dave’s Grill for dinner – highly recommend this place, food was superb!

Our only full day in Field was filled by advice from the hotel staff, who said we should go to Moraine Lake (back at Lake Louise) and go canoeing then hiking up to other lakes in the area. Before that, breakfast – best so far.

After collecting our hiker’s (packed) lunch from the hotel reception we go into our transfer bus – a Transit minibus driven by New Zealander Will, a marine biologist who had ended up in Canada enjoying himself climbing and other fun things. We had a good chat about travelling for the 30 minute journey to Moraine Lake, made better because it was free!! Our hotel is owned by the same company who own the only hotel at the lake, so they have the ability to come and go for free as “residents” – other minibuses pay $700 a trip to access the long private road leading to the lake.

Once at the lake we used the hotel’s facilities and headed over to the canoe hire. We were treated like VIPs as we were waved through the queue with our free canoe hire tickets (courtesy of our hotel), with others receiving slower treatment with lots of safety briefing information (we got very little!) We were also allowed unlimited time on the lake, with everyone else getting an hour for $160 per boat.

With a length of the lake and back complete, we headed off for our hike to Lake Consolation. We chose this as a shorter route because the weather didn’t look ideal, and had a nice walk through the bottom of the scree slope and into a dense pine forest. Just as we arrived at the lake it began to rain. A lot. We sheltered under trees and ate the hiker’s lunch to see if the rain might stop. It didn’t. So we had a quick look at the lake (normally spectacular) and headed back through the forest and to the hotel, where we waited for Will to return to collect us.

Once back at the hotel we installed ourself in front of their fire. Whilst some of us updated the blog, others did other things.

To end the day we went to a popular local (and the only) restaurant in Field, Truffle Pigs. With 28 covers it’s not the biggest, but the food was excellent.

To get back to the hotel we had to cross a railroad track – sadly one of the really long trains blocked our way, so we headed back the long way round along an avalanche-prone dirt track. For once we were back at the hotel at a good time of day (7pm vs the usual 9 or 10) – and listened to other trains crawling past.