Train to Toronto!

Picking up from the previous post, we caught the shuttle bus in central Edmonton. It was early afternoon and our train wasn't until 11:30pm that night. There was no way in hell I was going to make it without sleep, we ended up getting a hotel room, which may seem pointless for 6 hours but it's amazing how much better a shower and a couple of hours sleep helps! 

We checked in at the station, long story short, the train did not come at 11:30pm like it was supposed to...it was 3am before we got on board! My word was I cranky with the lack of sleep.

We slept in well and truly the next day, having a late brunch. Our train was very nice, we had our own cabin with bunk beds to ourselves, you'll see how spacious in the photos! They would come and fold away the beds during the day so we could sit in our cabin and watch the world go by. There were also some sky seating cabins which you were seated just above the top of the train I atlas bubble, which gave a great perspective of everything!

There really isn't much to say about the next two days, I'll let the photos speak for what we did. It mostly consisted of eat, watch the world go by, eat, watch shows, eat dinner at the fantastic time of 5pm, then snooze! I'm a seasoned professional when it comes to eating! 

We arrived in Toronto a few days later, quite late as we never made up the time and we were constantly stopping to allow freight trains through. The freight train company owns the rails so they have preference and they were huge! Quite a few were bigger than any I've seen back home. 

Click here for my personal favourite photo for this post!

I'll pick up Toronto in the next post, light reading for this post sorry folks!

Whitehorse & Aurora Borealis!

Mustn't stay put in place for long! We were on our way the next morning heading to Whitehorse, way up north in the Yukon near the Alaskan border. We had to go via Vancouver, of course we would have another flight become delayed once we had boarded, we weren't having much luck this trip with flights! After an hour of sitting at the gate we eventually set off, arriving in Whitehorse a few hours later. 

It was a lovely 1 degree celcius when we arrived that afternoon... I was in heaven! Haha. We met our tour guide for the next few nights then checked into our hotel 'The Best Western Goldrush Inn'. The name says it all about history of this town. Nowadays it's exactly what I expected, a country city, where barely a thing opens on a Sunday and everything just feels very casual. We went for a walk around the town but as it was a Sunday, most things were closed. We had dinner at a bar nearby and tried to get some rest. The next three nights were going to be consisting of being picked up at 10:30pm heading out till 3am and hoping to see what I came all this way for...the Aurora Borealis!

We arrived at the viewing area for the first night, it was in the middle of no where, a good half an hour out of Whitehorse. The cabin area was fantastic, they had set up a warm log cabin to relax in, a bonfire outside, marshmallows for toasting and hot drinks to keep us all warm! They had even welded together and prepared a heap of homemade tripods, which was perfect for me having left all of mine at home. Getting the settings right on the camera was a challenge in itself and unfortunately we had no luck the first night, the super moon was just to bright then cloud came over and gave us no chance.

The next morning we went for a tour around Whitehorse, then spent the rest of the day catching up on sleep before we headed out again. Unfortunately again that night the clouds didn't budge whatsoever. We all sat around chatting, it was good fun still chatting to people from all over the globe and hearing their stories, especially an Italian couple that had never been to Australia but one location they knew (that I didn't think many knew unless they had visited) was Kangaroo Island! I don't think some Aussies even know where it is.

Our last day we caught up on some boring chores and I did some catching up on the blog accompanied with some sleep before heading out for the final chance to see those illusive bastard lights! It was a small group, just us and 4 Japanese women, we all cooked moose meat sausages and marshmallows and discovered that no matter where you're from, the 'Quick! 5 second rule!' when you drop some food always applies.

It was cloudy almost the whole night, Cara had given up around 1:30am and fallen asleep inside the cabin, I woke her 5 minutes before we were about to leave, honestly given up all hope and convinced the trip to Whitehorse was a complete waste. Next minute our guide yelled out 'It's coming, it's coming!'. Oh my gosh, it was absolutely worth the sleepless nights and travelling that distance, it crept up from the north, the green glow was dancing and moving across the skyline, it was spectacular!! I have wanted to see if for so long. Worth the wait! 

We got back into Whitehorse around 3:30am, unfortunately no time to get to bed, we had a flight at 5am heading over to Edmonton for the next part of our trip. After a brief stopover in Vancouver we arrived in Edmonton that afternoon worse, much worse for wear. Oh my god, I honestly think that's one most tired moments I've ever experienced!

Here is my personal favourite photo for this blog!

I'll pick up and continue the journey in the next post, stay tuned!

Waterton National Park

First off I'm going to apologise for not posting anything for the last week, our damned hotel charged a ridiculous amount for wifi plus I was pretty busy, New York is a crazy place!

Moving on, the next morning a few of us remained from the tour so we all had a very quick breakfast together as most needed to jet to other parts of the world. I was having massive sads today, probably slightly hungover but mostly from the tour ending, I was going to miss everyone, we all bonded so well, all good things must come to an end, I guess. I know a lot of other people that have done group tours know what I mean!

Cara and I found Chris as we were checking out, not ready to head off we went and hung out in Calgary for a while, mostly cracking ourselves up from the many hilarious and silly things we did. 

We eventually said our sad goodbyes and made our way to pick up our hire car. I promise Cara was already chewing away at her nails in anxiety for my driving on the other side of the road again. I'm was a pro by the end of this trip haha! We scored an upgrade, a BMW, by far the nicest car I have ever driven... It took me ages just to work out what some of the buttons and dials were!

We set off and once we were out of Calgary it was smooth on the highway. Honestly the drive down there was boring for the most part, flat and farm lands that reminded me so much of driving up towards Port Wakefield back home. A few hours later, the scenery changed drastically as we got close to Waterton National Park, becoming mountains and curving roads. 

It was pretty much dinner by the time we checked in to the hotel, so we ate and called it a night. It was a pretty damned remote location, right up against the American border. The Internet was satellite only and our TV had 4 channels, which only worked depending on the weather, haha!

This visit down here was to hopefully see some more bears (which I'll save you disappointment now, it didn't happen) but mostly for some downtime after the tour. 

We decided to go for a walk around the town and hike along a bush trail to a look out overlooking the lakes and township. The colours of the autumn leaves from all the trees are amazing, so many bright and vibrant yellows, oranges, browns, reds. You don't get sick of the scenery that's for sure.

I'll also add, Waterton is a tiny town in a national park with some hotels, quaint I'll call it. Few places to eat and a general store, it's nice though, people are friendly, elk cruising around the streets. We stopped at the store on the way back for supplies, the owner filled us in that the whole town practically shuts down come the end of September/October, apart from a few hotels. It was so bizzare and a little eerie, I've never been anywhere that everyone just closes up and leaves for half of the year! He was preparing to close up for the season so he sold us a bunch of stuff discounted, bargain!

The rest of the day we spent relaxing watching Narcos (highly recommend watching!) and doing a whole lot of nothing!

Our brekky in the mornings, (because we were being cheap asses) consisted of cereal from the store, ended up being drank through coffee mugs because we discovered there were no bowls or spoons. Just like later that day when we had some cheese and crackers, having no knives we ended up using my credit card (after I had cleaned it of course!!!) to slice the cheese. Only the best over here for us.

Anywho, we went for a trot around the lake surrounding part of Waterton then set off for a drive through some of the parks roads, really the whole day was relaxed just doing nothing besides exploring and eating at the bar that night.

Up at the unholy time of 6:30 am we had to set off back towards Calgary to return the car. We stopped at A&W for brekky, a fast food joint. My god, I felt absolutely disgusting after that meal, never again am I eating there. Trying not to hurl, I managed to get us back to Calgary, car returned and checked into our airport hotel. We hitched a bus into the city centre, went for a wander about and someone had to visit Sephora, again. Sigh. After some dinner we made our way back to the hotel, skyped some family and called it a day.

I'm going to start sharing a personal favourite shot for each post I write, something I've spent a bit of time on editing and I'll share a bit of a description with the shot etc. They may not be relating to the subject of that blog post but it'll be fun! So you can see it in it's best quality I'll share a link to the photo on my 500px page.

Today's photo can be found right here!

A few blogs coming all at once folks, keep your eyes peeled!