Our Train Ride from Jasper to Vancouver and the on to Victoria-An almost 24 hour Journey

We arrived at the Jasper Train Station and found the train, “The Canadian” was running about 2 hours late and actually departed the station even later than that after being cleaned and reloaded with food and linens, etc. (Train #1 actually starts in Montreal and goes across Canada in 3 days). The train was a real hoot as we reserved a sleeping car room-their were bunk beds and an attached toilet in the room. The beds looked like a camp set up and in actuality were quite comfortable once we got the idea of going up and down the bunk ladder. There was a beautiful waterfall (Pyramid Falls) visible only from the train and we also saw a black bear in the forest and a big brown grizzly on the side of the track that seemed to be smiling as the train passed by. The scenery was magnificent, the food was surprisingly good and the service quite competent. We spent a lot of time playing scrabble and even went up to the dome car to get some interesting views of the scenery. The train had to stop or slow down several times to let other CN freight trains pass in the other direction. We arrived in Vancouver after 15 hours on the train-rented a car at the station and started our journey to Victoria.

From Vancouver we drove south to the BC Ferry Terminal in Tsawassan, BC (about 35 minutes drive) boarded this enormous ferry that was loaded with cars, buses and trucks and spent a bit over 1 ½ hours in a somewhat rock and roll ride over to Victoria. We had lunch on the ferry and landed in Swartz Point on Victoria Island after passing some beautiful island s with summer homes on them. We drove onto the city of Victoria arrived at our hotel (The Marriott Victoria Inner Harbor) within 45 minutes. The hotel is quite comfortable and situated very well, about 2 blocks from the harbor and right in the center of town. So, our total travel time from the hotel in Jasper to the hotel in Victoria was just about 24 hours!