Day 11 ~ Rocky Mountaineer - Kamloops to Vancouver

It was an early start this morning after a good night's sleep.  We were picked up at our hotel at 7:20 and the train left Kamloops at 8:00.

Kamloops turned out to be completely different to what I expected.  Much bigger and beautifully green.  Apparently is it semi-arid but they have had exceptional rainfall over the past few days which has greened it up nicely.  This is my favorite photo of Kamloops - a mum taking the kids to school in a pull-along cart.  Sorry about the size, but she was a little way away.

Mum Taking Kids to School in Kamloops

We really haven't had to do anything for the past 2 days.  Our luggage gets taken (independently) to our destination and put in our room.  Today we just had to leave our luggage (all packed of course) in our room and it was waiting for us in our room in Vancouver.

Breakfast and a 3 course lunch are all laid out here and there are 2 sittings for each.  There are mostly Australians in our coach which has proved to be a little cringe worthy, if not embarrassing on a couple of occasions.  It seems that no matter how old or how much money you may have (or pretend to have), Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi is still hilariously funny apparently when in a crowd of fellow Australians.  We also have an Aussie in our coach who seemsto have the only video of bears here in Canada and the videos screen for anyone willing to watch, with blow by blow commentary on their behavior!  A must see - sadly we missed it:)

Don't get me wrong, we have had a fantastic couple of days, but I think we're both happy to move on to our own space later today and are looking forward to Vancouver for the weekend.

The scenery today has been (again) spectacular, but with fewer Maria Von Trapp moments.  Beautiful green hillsides and following the Thompson and Fraser rivers through to Vancouver.

2 pics of the Thomson River

Ian did spy 2 black bears on the side of the tracks that it seems nobody else saw and he didn't get a pic, so the sighting is "unconfirmed" but I'm sure he wouldn't lie about something like that.  We got to see many Osprey nests and a couple soaring over the lakes and mountains.  We saw a coyote drinking from a waterhole but that's about it for wildlife for today.  The Thompson river is renowned for its rafting, but I'm not doing that again.  Oh, and it's just a little bit too cold - thankfully!  Photo of Osprey I would have included the bears that Ian saw, but there's no photographic evidence.

Place holder for Ian's Bear photo!

They had a poem competition and a couple of fellow travelers read out theirs.  Then a lovely english lady said that her husband had written one but he was too shy to read it out.  She read it for him, and it captured every moment in history of the railways here in Canada and the hopes, dreams and aspirations of all of us on board.  It almost had me in tears.  I think it will be read on the Rocky Mountaineer for many years to come.  They were married 44 years today.

We arrived in Vancouver around 7:30 PM.  Sorry it's over, but happy that we've done it!