20240909 Monday, September 9, 2024- Kamloops to Vancouver

20240909 Monday, September 9, 2024- Kamloops to Vancouver

We did sleep like logs after getting into Kamloops so late last night.  We were disappointed that our buses took us straight from the hotel, which is in downtown Kamloops, directly to the train siding, which was north of town about 25 minutes away without bothering with a driving tour of Kamloops.  

Reboarding was pretty effortless but they still didn’t allow anyone to walk to the front of the lead locomotive.  There was a spare locomotive outside a maintenance shed that we could get a picture of.  We boarded at 7:50am.  

Kamloops Lake

While yesterday’s rail trip was a bit disappointing, today’s proved more scenic than yesterday.  Leaving out of Kamloops, things looked a lot like the Columbia reach in Eastern Washington.  As the train followed the Thompson and Fraser Rivers, there were  more open views of the canyon and train.  The Thompson river canyon was more scenic than the climb and descent around the continental divide yesterday.  Due to the steepness of the canyon walls, into which the rail grade had been carved, there was generally decent visibility of the river, train and canyon walls.  Trees were unable to gain a foothold on those slopes. There were lots of tunnels and rock slide sheds along the canyon route.  There were also very fragile appearing hodoos along some of the steeper slopes uphill from the rail grade. 

 

Rush hour traffic- us parked behind another train waiting.

One of many Thompson River crossings. 

CN tracks on left, CPKS tracks on right

Avalanche Alley- protective sheds

Hodoos

Thompson River Gorge

There was a sighting of mountain sheep above the Thompson River, but no bears, deer or elk today.  

There were some very impressive whitewater stretches on the Thompson river, and we saw a few rafting groups floating down the river as we passed by.  

The confluence of the Thompson and Fraser Rivers showed a dramatic mixing of the brown glacial silt laden Fraser River and clear blue-green Thompson river. 

 

Confluence of the Fraser and Thompson Rivers

Mixing downstream of the confluence

Crossing of the CN and CPKS lines

Breakfast and lunch were both fine, but being second seating, our breakfast ended close to 11am and lunch didn’t really finish until nearly 4PM.  The eggs Benedict was offered with smoked salmon instead of Canadian bacon, and they had a Boursin egg scramble which was also good.  Janet opted for a peppercorn strip steak and Ben opted for seared albacore tuna for lunch with the same desserts.  

Meals on the train have provided a great opportunity to meet and learn more about our fellow passengers.  We met a retired psychology professor and middle school honors biology teacher from Charlotte North Carolina, a retired petroleum executive from Melbourne Australia and his wife, and a pair of men accompanying their wives who had won Rocky Mountaineer tickets in a charity raffle in Calgary. One was a working petroleum engineer and the other was recently retired from an Oil and Gas related hedge fund but they had both been friends for ages.  Their wives came with two other women who made an entertaining foursome of girlfriends. We also met 2 couples from Brisbane who had travelled separately, and one couple from Sydney.  It appears that this excursion and cruise is popular with Australians.  Since it ends up in Japan, it’s a lot shorter flight back home than from the US or Canadian west coast. 

The further down the Fraser river we got, the more it began to look like home in Western Washington with the fir, spruce, alder and maple forests again crowding out views.  During our late lunch, we sat at a standstill for a long time due to some construction around the tracks in Hope.  

As a result, our Vancouver arrival, which could have been as early as 6:30pm under ideal circumstances, was delayed to after 8pm, so we ended up with a light meal service at 6:30pm and ongoing beverage services.  The light meal service is served in our upstairs seats and not in the dining car, so it’s basically a single course airplane meal.  Tonight it was chicken on a corn, pepper and bean medley with marinara and a wedge of very sweet cornbread, which was more like cake than bread.  

As we approached Vancouver, we had to stop and wait several more times as darkness fell.  We slipped into the siding at 9:53PM, which was near a Rocky Mountaineer Building, but there didn’t appear to be any real terminal for passengers.  Buses were waiting in a parking lot adjacent to where the train had stopped.  When we were in Kamloops, the Rocky Mountaineer packed us into buses like sardines, so we were very happy to see our full sized Viking motor coach with our driver Julio waiting for us.  He had been waiting for over 3 hours for us to arrive.  He had dropped our suitcases off at the hotel about 6 hours earlier.

It was a fairly quick ride to the Fairmont Waterfront Hotel which is just across the street from the Canada Place Cruise Ship terminal.  Carmen gave us our room keys and we made our way up to the rooms where our luggage was already waiting for us.  This hotel is first class and very luxurious, worthy of the tour price. 

 

Unlike Kamloops, although we arrived late to Vancouver, we will have a full day in Vancouver and a farewell dinner at the Fairmont Waterfront in Vancouver tomorrow September 10 before embarking on the ship on September 11.  The light meal that was provided was adequate for us, but unlike in Kamloops, there are plenty of bars and restaurants on the Vancouver waterfront for anyone still feeling peckish, and a full (but expensive) room service at the Fairmont.  Tonight’s and tomorrow’s sightseeing are on our own, while we will have a  Best of Vancouver bus tour during our transfer from the Fairmont to the ship on September 11.