Today was our second day on the Rocky Mountaineer, so the routine was similar to yesterday. The Rocky Mountaineer folks include overnight accomodation and transfers. They also check you in to the hotel and transport your baggage directly to and from the hotel, so it is always waiting for you. My mind does boggle at the systems they would need in place to ensure success of this operation.
We were taken from the hotel to the rail yard by the same bus driver who delivered us last night. His name was Jeff and he had a resemblance to Jeff Bridges (Big Lebowski style) with shoulder length hair and a similarly gravelly voice. Throughout the 20 minute trip, he imparted some interesting information about Kamloops, the most striking of which is that the summer temperatures frequently reach 40 degrees and the winter temperatures can dip as low as -20 degrees. Apart from being the place where the major highways and railways meet, Kamloops is promoted as the Tournament Capital of Canada. It hosts more than 100 sporting tournaments each year in sports such as hockey, baseball and curling to name a few. It’s major industries are logging, beef cattle, vegetable farming, transportation, viticulture, health care and tourism. It is situated at the confluence of the North and South Thompson Rivers that then flow into Kamloops Lake, which has lots of small settlements around it and some abundant wildlife. We saw a number of Bald Eagles and some Big Horned sheep.
The train follows the Thompson river for quite a while. We saw at least three black bears, more eagles and could see that this year’s salmon run has begun. Over the next month or two the bears will need to eat a lot of food to prepared for hibernation over the coming winter. The river also has some rapids that are highly ranked in terms of difficulty.
We were on the second serving today, so didn’t get breakfast until we were well up Kamloops Lake and then the Thompson River. Today we both opted for the pancakes to go with the standard fruit platter and a pastry. Just to be clear though, they do provide a sustaining coffee and some cranberry muffin while you wait, so there is no starving involved
Rocky Mountaineer also run a route from Jasper and they join the Banff and Jasper trains at Kamloops for the second day. Our train was 24 carriages long, which is one of the largest trains they have run this year.
The train sticks to the Thompson River through lots of canyons until it eventually meets the Fraser River, where the clear water from the Thompson meets the muddy water of the Fraser. At Fraser Canyon, the Canadian Pacific and Canadian National railways meet and cross the Fraser River.
The route follows the Fraser River all the way into Vancouver. For our lunch sitting, We started with a seafood charcuterie board and then I had the Crab Ravioli while Deb had Salmon. We shared our lunch with another couple from Dallas, Texas for another round of good food and conversation.
As we came over the mountain ranges we we could still see a lot of the wildfires are still burning, but not with the same ferocity of a few weeks ago. Eventually, the mountains give way to farming land and we reached the outskirts of Vancouver to complete the journey.
Overall it was a great experience and is highly recommended. We travelled in ‘GoldLeaf’ class which provides the full domed carriages and the separate dining areas. It was a lot of fun and we met and chatted with a lot of interesting people. Our carriage hosts, Nicola, Olivia, Reizel amd Mauro were magnificent. The only areas for improvement were that the music playlist was a bit 60s and country focussed and could do with a contemporary touch and the last 20 kms or so into Vancouver took 2 hours, which dragged a little.
They transferred us successfully to our hotel for tonight, where we were reunited with our baggage. We’ll get an early night anfter a couple of early starts.
Until tomorrow!
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