15 November 2006
Second day on the train
Friday 3 November
Last night we played cards for a while (trying to make up more interesting variations of rummy as we couldn't remember any proper ones), then watched the first half of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon until the laptop battery ran out. Then we went to bed. The seats weren’t too bad to sleep on, as we had a double seat each and a table between us, though we both woke up every hour or so with a dead leg or cricked neck.
We have realised that it takes so long to get anywhere by train here not only because the country is so big, but also because the trains go so slowly. We must travel at about 20-30 mph most of the time, and every time a freight train goes by on the other track (when there is a second track) we slow to a crawl.
This morning we were still in Ontario, and the scenery was still much the same: conifer and birch woods, lakes and rivers. It’s very beautiful – not mountainous but lots of little hollows and valleys and ponds. Most of the water was frozen over, so yesterday’s black pools had become white or marbled grey. Mostly the trees are still green and grey, as there was not much snow on them. There were lots of trees that had bent right over without breaking. All of them looked only a few decades old – there seems to be a lot of logging round there.
In the afternoon played draughts with dimes and pennies, read and looked out of the window. The scenery changed to being very flat a bit before Winnipeg. We got off at Winnipeg and sorted out our refund. We managed to apply our travel credits to get beds for our Kamloops – Vancouver trip in about two weeks' time, which left us feeling a bit better about having slept in the observation dome. Outside the station we touched snow for the first time this winter when we went out to stretch our legs in the car park. They put on a new coach at Winnipeg so we got back to reclining seats with footrests.
Last night we played cards for a while (trying to make up more interesting variations of rummy as we couldn't remember any proper ones), then watched the first half of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon until the laptop battery ran out. Then we went to bed. The seats weren’t too bad to sleep on, as we had a double seat each and a table between us, though we both woke up every hour or so with a dead leg or cricked neck.
We have realised that it takes so long to get anywhere by train here not only because the country is so big, but also because the trains go so slowly. We must travel at about 20-30 mph most of the time, and every time a freight train goes by on the other track (when there is a second track) we slow to a crawl.
This morning we were still in Ontario, and the scenery was still much the same: conifer and birch woods, lakes and rivers. It’s very beautiful – not mountainous but lots of little hollows and valleys and ponds. Most of the water was frozen over, so yesterday’s black pools had become white or marbled grey. Mostly the trees are still green and grey, as there was not much snow on them. There were lots of trees that had bent right over without breaking. All of them looked only a few decades old – there seems to be a lot of logging round there.
In the afternoon played draughts with dimes and pennies, read and looked out of the window. The scenery changed to being very flat a bit before Winnipeg. We got off at Winnipeg and sorted out our refund. We managed to apply our travel credits to get beds for our Kamloops – Vancouver trip in about two weeks' time, which left us feeling a bit better about having slept in the observation dome. Outside the station we touched snow for the first time this winter when we went out to stretch our legs in the car park. They put on a new coach at Winnipeg so we got back to reclining seats with footrests.
