DAY FIVE – Ashcroft – Vancouver
Due to troubled sleep with crazy newbie driver (sorry, engineer), and general concerns about future seeping into train fugue, my last sleep on the train was very fast. Pillow + head + connect = sleep. Phone dropped.
Panic in the morning. Did I miss alarm? Why is it so light? Why is it so quiet?
Lifted bed to find phone.
04:15
Grrrrrrrrr …
Proceeded to pack, shower, wander down for prompt brekkie at 06:30.
Little bit sad to say goodbye to gang – strangers no more. Iain from Edinburgh to have a day in Sydney as part of his cruise so I can be a tour guide – lucky him! Nat and Joris heading separately to Vancouver Island. Ruth from California had red welts or rash all over her. She sent an email to say she (and her belongings) had been sniffed by the bed bug dog and been cleared. Good news on the insect front but where did she get that horrid rash? She was on her way to her next train back. She will have done a train circle around North America by the time she gets home.
You know Leonard says it best.
The Stranger Song by Leonard Cohen Lyrics
Following the Man on Seat 61 I did book into the Fairmont Vancouver. Very easy hop skip and jump from VIA railway station on the Sky Train Expo Line for three stops. Much friendlier than the Toronto cousin.
Nice acclimatising before catching up with family friends, Harri, Melina, Jacob, Izzy the dog and two cats. They live close to the Vancouver CBD and they generously looked after me. Vancouver seems human sized. It’s surrounded by hills and water and we went walking.
We walked and we talked through the Seymour Demonstration Forest, the Lynn Canyon and the Thirty Foot Pools. We talked and we walked up to Quarry Rock via Community Trail. We did not see a bear. Many people clustered on the outlook to see Deep Cove. How great to breathe fresh air, listen to the forest, and walk after the physical stagnation of being on the train. And talk? My oh my, did we talk! Angels.
Vancouver also has a fantastic vegan bakery, To Live For. So that, right there, is worth travelling across a continent! And Harri and Melina, of course!
It was the Autumn Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere. In a couple of days I would flip Equinoxes by air travel. My travel around the world would total ten tons of carbon. I took five flights and one train: 1) Syd – Tokyo, 2) Tokyo – London, (two months teaching English in Brighton UK, then a visit to 2024 Historical Novelists Conference in Dartingon), 3) London – Toronto, 4) Vancouver to Fiji, 5) Fiji to Sydney. We know it costs more carbon to lift a craft off the ground and it’s better to fly directly. I’m not proud of myself. Ten Ton Tessie.
But sometimes you have to follow your dreams, just like Canadians, Martha and the Muffins …
Hello Victoria,
When I read that ‘tons of water fall down, and flush through power stations, one keeping the entire state of New York switched on, another powering up the whole province of Ontario’ I confess that I was sceptical. Can that really be so?
Meanwhile I look forward to reading the rest of your account of a journey which I hope to do myself one day.
Andrew
Absolutely true. I had photos of the NY power station taken from the bus but, you know, action photos are not the best. This is the one that powers New York state: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Moses_Niagara_Power_Plant and this is a general report: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Niagara_Falls_hydroelectric_generating_plants
You can do a ‘behind the falls’ tour which as I say, I missed but saw other people’s photos and it looks AWESOME. That takes you behind the first hydro scheme and through the tunnel.
I hope you do the cross continental trip – you’d really enjoy meeting so many like minded people. I think you’d be pretty good at train bingo, too!
Great write-up! I enjoyed it almost as much as sharing the train ride with you. If I had a hat I would tip it 15%.
Thank you so much, Joris! Looking forward to reading more about your adventures! Will you share your blog address here?
Do you mean a 15% chance you would tip your hat or you would angle your hat, just a little, to 15% off perfect?
Hello again my fearless friend. I have a small contribution thus far – bananas are not trees, like bamboo. Monocotyledons.
( this is a cotyledon )
I attempted a stupid emoji in brackets above. So in words, I was trying to illustrate monocotyledons emerge from seeds with a single leaf-like emergent. Dicotolydons emerge with two. Look for a blade of grass verses basil.
Such a side-stream sorry.
All to congratulate you for your tale-telling
Louiselle
Excellent sleuthing, Louiselle! Will amend at once!