Canada Part 1

We’re still processing pictures, so hopefully I’ll be able to put one or two up here for you all, but until then, words will have to do…

We flew into Calgary airport on Monday 11th July, which for those who don’t know is Day One of Calgary Stampede Week. This is their annual week-long all-singing, all-dancing Rodeo Spectacular. As we’re not really into horses, we had planned to get a taxi transfer straight up to Banff. We were first out of baggage reclaim, and so went to find our driver. Imagine our surprise to be greeted in Arrivals by line-dancers, country and western singers, and this huge cowboy with a lasso! I was just gawping at it all, and looked back to discover that John (trying to push our baggage trolley) had just been lassoed! Welcome to Canada!

We made the 90-minute car trip to Banff without further incident, and arrived at Brewster’s Mountain Lodge Hotel. Sounds out in the woods, but in fact it was incredibly central to the tiny town of picturesque Banff, nestling right at the foothills of still-snow-covered Rocky Mountains. We then discovered that our room had been upgraded to a suite – one of the hotel’s “Romance Suites” in fact - and had the fun of trying out a double-sized whirlpool bath in our room! Banff itself is amazing, and had just had the worst spring/summer weather in living memory. It had only stopped raining a few days prior to our visit, and so the main local problem turned out to be mosquitoes! Add to that the fact that I got quite sunburnt, so we had to raid the local drugstore for both Factor 30 sun block and mozzie cream! However, we managed to cram in to our 3 days there some of the most amazing sightseeing. We went up to Sulphur Mountain, which overlooks the whole town, in a gondola – a mini cable car that seats just 4 people at a time – incredible views. We then took a tour to the local lakes, which are the most stunning shades of blue and green – looks like a Disney animator had airbrushed it – hard to believe it was really that colour. We then had a wonderful day visiting a glacier on the Ice fields Parkway, travelling in a Snowmobile to get right onto the glacier itself.

Then it was onto the Rocky Mountaineer Train – the highlight of the whole trip really. Two days spent on the train that is billed as “The Most Spectacular Train Journey In The World”, and lives up to its name. We stayed overnight in a hotel in Kamloops, but experienced some of the most breathtaking scenery ever. Food was gourmet – I got to eat Eggs Benedict with lobster for breakfast, and Bison for lunch!! We’ll post some pics as soon as we can, but fear that nothing can do the trip justice. We met some great people on the train too, one couple that shared exactly the same Silver Wedding anniversary date as us! Another couple from New Zealand, both Principals of primary schools, and shared two of our meals chatting at length with them, especially about Special Needs Education in NZ and the UK – fascinating…

And so with sad farewells we left the train and made it to the first big city – Vancouver. And we began to see a pattern – that God had definitely gone ahead of us, was treating us like King’s Kids all the way, had provided angels in each place with information we could not have otherwise got, and was delighting in surprising us all over the place. Co-incidences? I don’t think so…..


More soon…..