Category: Travelling Tales

Last Thursday we headed up to Edinburgh for a long weekend. We had both been there a few times, but I think the last time I went I was still at uni, so a re-visit was long overdue. A few weeks ago Andy found a deal for first class train travel (which means bigger seats, a meal and drinks) for £30 each, which seemed like a bargain. We got the train from Kings Cross at 6pm, so spent the evening on the train, listening to the film podcast first, and then some others, before arriving after 11pm (the train got stuck behind a slower train after another train broke down and it had to take a different route, so it was a bit later than planned). We were planning on walking to our hotel as it was around a mile from the station but after walking a bit we ended up getting an uber.

On Friday morning we went out for breakfast at this amazing bakery around the corner from our hotel (Loudon’s)- I was spoilt for choice but in the end went for French toast with bananas and salted caramel sauce. So delicious.

Loose leaf tea in little tea pots too, which is always a winner in my book. Andy had gone for scrambled eggs (his usual) but even he was envious of my choice- it was such good bread (home-baked) and really thick slices- not soaked and not too eggy. It was massive though (not sure the photo really shows it) and so he ended up finishing it for me!

Good fuel for walking around the town. We walked along Princes Street (the main shopping street) and into a park at the end, up some steep steps for lovely views.

We then walked along the Royal Mile, past all of the very touristy shops, up to the castle. Andy wanted to go into the Whisky experience, so we booked tickets for later that afternoon. We were both so full from breakfast so we shared a salad, before heading inside to warm up.

The tour was actually quite interesting, and we got to see the thousands of varieties made in Scotland. Each ticket also got you two samples- we did ask if they did a cheaper one without, as I wouldn’t drink them, and they told us I could have Irn Bru instead- sorry Scotland but I’ll pass on that. Andy had mine! The seating area had great views too, and a map to show what you were actually looking at too. We then walked back along the main streets, before heading for an early dinner close to our hotel.

On Saturday morning I was off for my parkrun tourism.

I was very glad of uber as I am not sure I would have managed to navigate the buses. However there were not that many around so I had to wait about 10 minutes at the end before one came- if I had realised that I would have booked one and then stretched and taken photos, whereas I waited until I had done all of that before booking it. Ah well.

We headed to Loudon’s again, and I was going to have the blueberry pancakes, but then they said they were doing a Halloween special- French toast with nutella, banana creme fraiche, caramel sauce and m&m’s- I could not resist that! It also came with various jelly sweets which I asked to be left off because of the gelatin. I was so full after that! We needed a big breakfast as we were walking up Arthur’s Seat (and walking to the bottom from our hotel). There are some museums in Edinburgh but we were saving those for if it rained- not this time luckily.

It was hard work!

I even took my coat off as we were walking up as I got so hot. I soon put it back on again as the wind was very cold.

We had lovely views across to the park we went to on the Friday- it also showed us how  far we had yet to walk as we were going back to the centre after.

We didn’t need lunch of course, but we stopped for a cup of tea to warm up for a bit, and sat in the park with lovely views.

On our way past Hotel Chocolat we saw a sign that advertised a seasonal special (the shop had a cafe in the back)- spiced hot chocolate with salted caramel (or something, I can’t quite remember). I could not resist that so we shared one of those- it was so good.

Then it was time for dinner- we were both pretty shattered after all of that walking.

On Sunday we were up early as we had to get the train back at 12.00- this time I had the blueberry pancakes (they were actually purple!) which I think came with banana and cherries. Of course it was delicious. We then walked into the centre and wandered around the town a bit. Annoyingly my back was really sore when I woke up, and so I was walking fairly slowly and not looking forward to sitting down all afternoon on the train.

Going back down in the light was great, particularly further north as the train tracks were right by the coast. We saw lovely views, and mostly listened to more podcasts- really relaxing.

It was a great place to visit, and we are already looking at where else we can get to by train- Durham always looks great and the line goes through there so that might be next.

Have you ever been to Edinburgh? What type of city break activities do you like to do?

So after a kayak on Moraine Lake, and a walk up to the top to take a few last pictures, we loaded up the car and headed off as we had a long drive (over 400km) to Kelowna. Annoyingly, as I have mentioned before, this was Saturday, and on that very Saturday, the inurural Canadian parkrun was starting, IN KELOWNA!!! But there was no way we were starting our drive at 3am to make it there on time. We stopped early on in our journey to pick up some bits for lunch (we got a nice picnic of hummus, ready sliced peppers, crackers and apples) but we didn’t pass any proper looking rest stops, so we ended up powering through, arriving in the afternoon.

Kelowna is on a large lake and seemed the place that a lot of people had headed to on holiday- loads of trucks towing boats, and there were large parks where you could hire bikes and do some walking. In the end we spent a bit of time walking around near our hotel, going to a shopping mall, walking along by the lake (a lovely path from close to the town centre all along past beaches and marinas), in the old town, and we even came across a lovely Japanese garden.

Now I know about the parkrun, we can plan our next trip to make it work!

The Japanese garden

A cool bear sculpture by the water. It was fairly overcast here, but it was very hot indeed.

Some of my favourite Canadian shops were visited (plus Roots- not sure where the bag was for that)

We only stayed there for two nights, so on our final morning I was awake early so headed to the gym in the hotel for a run- I was conscious that we had an even longer car journey so I wanted to get moving for a bit that day. I had it all to myself at the start, and listened to a Marathon Talk podcast while I was running (I save them for running so I had a bit of a backlog).

I even managed a mid-run photo, although I realised afterwards that I could have just pretended by holding a running pose…

Anyway, the 500+km journey to Whistler loomed, so we didn’t hang about after breakfast.

Again, we didn’t really find anywhere to stop properly. We have been on a few US road trips and their roads seem to have frequent rest areas with benches and toilet blocks, but I think over this side of Canada it’s more sparsely populated. In the end we stopped on a pullout for a bit of a stretch, before the final few hours.

We had the evening and next morning in Whistler- we have been there before (last time we got the cable car into the mountains and did some lovely walks up there), and this time just enjoyed wandering around the village.

I was still loving the Olympic spirit! Because of the time difference we had seen a lot of it (although if a Canadian athlete was doing something in another sport, they would cut away).

Then we drove to the ferry port north of Vancouver (Horseshoe Bay) and got the ferry to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island.

When we arrived we knew we had (another) drive to our hotel, so we wandered around the town for a bit, and found a place that made smoothies and vegan food- we both went for the hummus wrap (some sort of dehydrated wrap- they gave us water to have with it too as apparently we needed to) which was filled with lovely fresh veggies, although very hard to eat!

Of course we also had to have a nanaimo bar- when in Rome eh?

On the drive to our hotel, we both saw something dark run across the grass in the middle of the freeway- initially we both thought it was a dog but when we got closer we realised it was a bear! Crazy!

One of the things we both really wanted to do was go whale watching, so we had booked a trip from Telegraph Cove.

It was the tiniest place- winter population =4!

As I am sure you can imagine I took many photos- I wanted to look at them properly, and not on my phone screen, so I tried to point my phone in the general direction and then press the button whenever I saw anything.

They put up a special “whale watching” flag whenever we saw whales, to warn other boats.

Killer whale/ orca

We were so lucky- we ended up seeing several pods of killer whales (some ate mammals, others ate fish), two humpback whales, porpoises, seals, sealions and dolphins!

Humpback whale

The next day we were heading to the other side of the island, so that will wait for another post.

Have you ever seen whales?  The shop had t-shirts that said “I’ve seen Blackfish in the wild”- I have been to Seaworld a few times and then after seeing that film I have had a lot of guilt. Although to be fair the wildlife expert on our boat told us that they were seen as the enemy as they ate fish, so there used to be a machine gun (yes- you read that correctly) mounted at one inlet and people would just shoot the whales. When they were first captured and put in aquariums, they realised how intelligent and also how endangered they were, so the conservation work started there. Although those parks played their part, they should be in the wild now.

So I am back from a wonderful holiday. Of course I took rather a lot of photos, and as we did a lot of moving about (I think the most we had was 3 nights in the same place) there is a lot of recapping, so I will do a few posts on it.

Because our flight was from Gatwick, which is basically in Brighton, and we didn’t fancy the two hour drive in rush hour, we got the train the night before and stayed in the Premier Inn, which meant we had a nice relaxing start the next day. The flight was long, (10 hours I think) – we flew with West Jet who are a sort of low (lower) cost airline- no food on board, no entertainment (although you could get an app and then watch things that way)- but that suited us- we bought some snacks with us and a nice sandwich in Pret, and I had downloaded a few things from i-player to my tablet which helped pass the time.

We landed in Calgary just after lunch time there, and headed to an outlet mall for a bit of shopping (and a London fog latte for me, oh how I love them) before driving to Drumheller. We had seen this place on The Amazing Race Canada (I love this show- a bit like a travel show crossed with the Crystal Maze)- it’s a canyon where loads and loads of dinosaur fossils were discovered, and there is a museum as well as trails through the badlands. Due to jet lag, we were at the museum before it even opened!

The scenery was very interesting, and we took part in a guided hike around the badlands as well as visiting the museum.

T-Rex called “Black Beauty”- the real skull was too heavy to be held in place.

It was set up really well, with a pathway to follow, lots of information about the fossils, and you could even look through a glass partition and see people working on the fossils.

We had a fairly long drive to Banff so after stopping to look at some hoodoos (rock formations) we headed off. We saw plenty of wildlife on this drive including deer and elk, and early evening arrived in Banff.

Our room had lovely views of the mountains, and after relaxing for a bit we headed into the town, which I think is the most scenic high street in the world.

The road lines up perfectly with the mountain. It is such a good town to stay in- it has that sort of apres ski vibe with shops, cafes and restaurants open in the evening.

During our days in Banff we walked around a nearby lake, hiked up to some waterfalls and took the gondola up the mountain for panoramic views.

We saw a beaver in the water at this lake- we were not quick enough to take a photo though.

From the top of the mountain

Driving back after visiting one of the waterfalls, we noticed a lot of cars pulled over (wildlife jam) and were very excited to see a bear! A little later it wandered across the road. Some people were getting very close and it did a bit of a charge to scare them off- I think people forget that they are wild animals. We had seen bears in Glacier park in the US, but never in Canada (and 7 years ago we visited Banff and Jasper and spent all of our journeys peering out of the car in hope of spotting one).

Mmmm London fog.

We had some lovely food too- we found a nice veggie place called Nourish which made very tasty nachos (covered in everything from cheese to blueberries), and a burger bar (Eddie’s) which had a menu, but also a create your own, where I had a veggie burger with peanut butter, pickles and blueberry chutney. Sounds weird but it was delicious.

Of course we found a bakery too (Wild Flour bakery)- we had been hiking all morning and did’t get into town until around 3pm- we shared carrot cake and it was so tempting to eat it while we were waiting for our sandwiches to be made! We planned to go back for breakfast as the almond croissants and cinnamon rolls looked so good, but when we got there they had none- how disappointing!

After a few days in Banff, we headed a hour or so north to Lake Louise. Again, we had visited here before, and last time tried to make the hike to the Lake Agnes tea house. The hotel were very helpful in providing a map, and we realised that last time we had headed off in the wrong direction completely.

This time the hike was a success! It’s just under 3k from the hotel to the tea house, but at times it is fairly steep, lots of switchbacks, and of course at a high elevation too, so it was hard work. We had been warned that the tea house was cash only (no electricity, they boil the water over a fire, although someone did ask if they had wi-fi…)- the people who work there stay for about 4 nights before hiking back down.

Anywhere with this long a tea list is good for me!  We then walked around the lake, and then attempted to climb up to another look out, but the switchbacks were very steep, the ground was covered in loose stones, and I could see the lake below me (I am not keen on being on a steep slope like that) so we gave up after getting most of the way there. I had to clamber down some of it sitting down as it was just so steep.

From the far side of the lake looking across to the tea house.

After hiking back down we were pretty shattered, in a good way (we had walked about 6 or 7 miles and pretty much none of it was flat), and so enjoyed dinner with views of Lake Louise.

The next morning Andy had booked a surprise for us- a sunrise canoe on Lake Louise. We had to be ready at the boat house for 6am- early indeed! They gave us a hot drink and a bag with some breakfast food, but I have no idea how people either drink or eat whilst paddling and not dropping the oar into the water.

I was very nervous about falling in (the water is so very cold) but after a bit I got used to it. The scenery was amazing, and it was so peaceful to be there in the middle of the water. I even braved a few photos, carefully balancing the oar on my lap. The reflections of the sun coming up were just amazing to see.

We were only there for one night, so after that we drove up the Icefields Parkway, stopping at Peyto lake (amazing, shaped like a wolf) and the Athabasca glacier, before getting to Jasper in the afternoon.

Peyto Lake

 The glacier

Our first stop in Jasper was the Bear’s Paw bakery, which we loved last time we went. It did not disappoint!

Driving up to our lodge we saw an elk, and two bears! Andy joked that I should run down to the village in the morning to get our breakfast, but with all that wildlife close by I declined! Lucky I didn’t because the next morning we saw a bear by the side of the road, happily eating berries and seemingly oblivious to our car.

An elk

Around Jasper there were more amazing lakes and views to be seen. Some of the hikes only allowed groups of four or more, due to bear activities, so we had to stick to the more populated paths.

Lake Annette- a lovely path (5k I think?) lead around the entire lake with beautiful views at every turn.

Medicine Lake (it looked very different from last time as there had been a forest fire so a lot of the trees were gone, or black).

Maligne Lake- you can do a cruise here for one of the most famous photos of the Rockies (Spirit Island) but as we did that last time we stayed on the shore this time.

On the way to Maligne lake we saw two moose by the side of the road!

We hiked along the trail at Mount Edith Cavell to see a lake filled with icebergs.

On our way back from seeing the Athabasca falls, there was another wildlife jam. At first we could not work out what it was, but then we saw it was a bear up a tree!

One afternoon we had a walk around trails close to Jasper town- this totem pole is in the town centre.

On our last day we shared one of the Bear’s Paw’s legendary sticky buns- so good, and bought a pb&j to have as lunch on our journey. We then drove back down the Icefields Parkway, stopping by another stunning lake for lunch.

We were staying at Moraine Lake, which is very close by to Lake Louise. Our hotel stay included a canoe hire, but it was a bit windy in the evening and they weren’t letting people go out, so we walked around the lake instead.

The next morning the weather was perfect so we spent about 45 minutes on the lake, before checking out.

After those 10 days we were leaving the Rockies behind us, but as we bought a National Parks pass that is valid until August 2018, I have a feeling we may well be going back…

Have you ever been to Canada? Would you be tempted? What sort of activities do you like to do on holiday?