Fri 5th - Kamloops to Vancouver

Hotel: Fairmont Waterfront

Another early start today and I for one was feeling very sleep deprived due to the various noises in the hotel during the night. We didn’t bother with breakfast at the hotel as we knew we’d be getting something on the train. It seemed most other people were grumbling about the service and food last night and like us most people had also filled out the hotel comments card voicing their disgust!

The train was super huge today as our train and the train that came in from Calgary were hooked together. The scenery today was a lot more impressive and the trackside tended to be a lot clearer than yesterday so not so many trees to block the view.

Wildlife of the feathered kind was in abundance today the main things being bald eagles and ospreys although trying to photograph them was a nightmare. Here’s one of the better ones.

Amongst the other things we say were a couple of bears and some elks or something similar. The train ride today seemed to drag a bit towards the end not sure if this was tierdness or just that the journey seemed to get a bit boring after lunch. To lighten the mood the rep played a game with us of craw the moose - most entertaining! The journey time in total today again was about 8 hours. Once off the train we had a quick tour of the city with a drive around Stanley Park. The hotel is on the waterfront as the name suggests and our room over looks the harbour although there’s a huge hotel and cruise terminal to our left so this obsqures a lot of the views. The meal tonight was a farewell meal in one of the conference suites, Owen got up and did a bit of a speech. He also gave us all a copy of the group photo we had took in Banff. We all look kind of super imposed onto the picture but a least most of us look fairly decent, if you get a chance to see it you‘ll notice I‘m the only one in a vest top, this is because we‘d come straight from breakfast for it and didn‘t have a chance to get coats. We finished off the evening in the evening in the bar for a we night cap with another couple. We hadn’t had to pay for any drinks during the meal tonight so an amaretto or 4 was in store for me despite of early start in the morning!