The “Pre-tour” has now ended with the Americans in the party leaving at Calgary, but having arrived in Toronto, several couples who were in Australia in 2007 have joined the tour, as well as the Guernsey Island representatives.
The original 21 tourists, became a well intergrated group and have a lot of fun along the way, a lot of it centred around Colin Gilbert from Australia.
British Columbia in the area around Vancouver, looked to be very fertile ground with a lot of vegetables and soft fruit with vineyards on the slopes of the mountains. They have had a wet summer and a lot of the permanent pastures have yet to be harvested. I was surprised to hear that they have relatively miild winters in the shadows of the mountain.
From Vancouver we started to travel inland on the Trans Canada Highway which is dual carriageway for most of its length and follows the same route as the railway, the completion of which in 1885 was and is such a vital link with the east of the country and with Europe. On its completion the goods traffic from Asia which used to have to travel around Cape Horn was able to travel across Canada saving at least 14 days at sea. Vancouver is still the busiest container port on the west coast of North America and at one point on the trip we were able to watch a train with 88 carriages most of which were carrying two containers using the spiral tunnels where the train dissappeared into the mountain to reappear at another level and thus reduce the gradient travelled.
There are two mountain ranges to cross before reaching the Rockies and we were fortunate that the coach driver was able to explain to us on the way and in fact he was better at it than a lot of the “professional” guides at some of the stops. I was surprised at the extent of the “forestry”on the mountains, but there was no evidence of any organised harvesting of the crop.
In the middle of the Rockies is the town of Banff, which the Coach driver warned us is an acronym for Be Aware Nothing For Free, and this very attractive town caters for both the winter and summer visitors. On a beautiful summers day we took a cable car to the top of Grass Mountain and the views from the top were stunning.
All the way across from Vancouver we were told to be on the lookout for the famous wildlife in particular the bears, but they proved to be pretty elusive which was a shame. Our trip ended at Calgary for the first day of the famous Stampede. We spent the afternoon at the Rodeo admiring the skills of the contestants who were competing for points in the daily heats and a $5000 prize which over the ten days of the event will find a champion. A unique part of the stampede are the Chuck Wagon races in which four wagons pulled by four racehorses and supported by a team of four outriders race each other around the oval track having first had to do a figure of eight around marker barrels to change direction and race to the first bend. A great spectacle. A small area of the stampede was given over to beef cattle breed promotion and also to a show of heavy horses.
There was a pavillion where each section of the industry explained to the city folk the realities of farming and I was amused to see that of the three dairy cows penned to be used in a milking demonstration the Ayrshire and Holstein were free of restraint but the “pretty” Jersey needed a head collar at all times!.
In the evening, starting about 8pm, a concert/cirucs was staged and with over 100 performers on stage at one time it was superbly organised. The motorbike stunt riders were magnificent, and the acrobats outstanding. At one point I found myself singing along to a Micheal Jackson tribute so perhaps “travel does broaden the mind”.