An overnight in Courtenay, BC and then a bus ride up to the very tip of the island, Port Hardy. Port Hardy was, in a word, very ORGANIZED. They made sure everybody had a place to stay the night and a ride to the ferry in the morning. So friendly, too. Looking like confused tourists on the street, people would stop and ask if they could help us... :) We enjoyed the most amazing Chinese food and fish and chips. Botanical highlights include a monkey puzzle tree, and a meter wide fallen stump in an old-growth wooden area beside the local highschool. The young, slightly confused, caucasian Chinese food waitress gave us a great trip quote: "If I understand (the Chinese cook) correctly, we are all out of steamed rice." Huh?
We boarded the brand new, German-built engineering marvel "The Northern Expedition" at 5:45am. It was beautiful!! The kids headed straight to the 'playground' area... and befriended some other kids, playing pirates and watching Treehouse. This boat was also equipped with a cafeteria ($8.00 sandwich, $11 breakfast), white-linen restaurant (I don't want to know), small theater, sun deck, and the trip had lots of whales to spot.
Every trip has at least one bum-hotel, and we hit this in Prince Rupert... Prince Rupert is completely unwalkable (at least to and from ferry and VIA terminals) and so my advice would be to get a nicer place to stay, regardless how far away it is from the dock. The first sentence out of the hotel concierge's mouth was something about how if we had called the hotel directly we could have saved money and gotten a much better rate. Not great words of welcome to Prince Rupert!! It was 11pm, after a stinky wait at a ugly ferry terminal for a cab ! (Why do coach buses always idle??)
Things improved the next morning with our VIA trip. Although we weren't traveling in "totem class", we heard all about it. (Please return from the viewing lounge to your seats for your champagne breakfast.. blah blah blah.) We had a fabulous time, thanks to a wonderful french Canadian hostess, 'Louise' who made sure everybody had what they needed and didn't take any crap from anyone. This train trip, compared to the train from Vancouver, seemed like a great call. 2 days, no nights, not crowded, stunning rugged mountains and glacial rivers abounding. Our 4-seater spot came with a table, complete with CHECKER squares printed on it!! We rounded up enough dimes, nickels, toonies etc to represent rooks, knights, bishops, and played chess. 
Our kids were great and we particularly enjoyed meeting some of the other folks
traveling with us, including the most darling 2 year old native girl that our boys doted on. She was so adventurous she sat on our laps, rearranged the boys' chess coins, and eagerly knocked down the card towers the boys made for her. We were so sad our camera's battery died and we didn't get her on film.
Our night in Prince George was a huge improvement over Prince Rupert. I liked Prince George – it seemed so familiar. In the plains (a break from the mountains), a mid-sized town, with a struggling downtown. Very friendly again!
As the train rolled in to Jasper, the views were amazing. Jasper was breath-taking, but very busy. So many European tourists as well as us Canadians! We heard about 5 different languages. Sue's stomach was starting to feel the effects of 4 days on the road, so we were glad we opted for the room with a kitchen. Bonus: our room overlooked the pool -- so once the kids were in bed, we snuck out to the hottub, keeping our eye on them through the window! I'll attach some views from around Jasper, we took a tram to the top of Mt. Whistler and hiked close to the summit, coming back through some snow fall.....
No comments:
Post a Comment