Today was another sleep in day on the tour where we could do our own thing. After we woke up we went for a stroll around Victoria – and came into contact with one of the colourful locals – a guy dressed up as Darth Vader playing the violin! Although it was up there, it wasn’t quite the highlight of Victoria!

In the afternoon, we hoped on one of these little water taxi’s and took a tour around Victoria Harbour. Paul loved this as the harbour is one of the busiest airports in the world (take off and landing wise, not passenger wise) as all the sea plans from Vancouver and Seattle come in regularly.

Once we jumped off the water taxi we were back on the bus towards dinner about 20 minutes down the road by the water. Lets just say the view from the table was amazing!

After dinner we headed up to Victoria’s equivalent of Mt Coot-tha for a view of the city lights… before heading back to the hotel

Today we lost our train legs after two days rocking side to side on the Rocky Mountaineer.

For the first half of the day we had a tour around Vancouver… which is a pretty nice place.  Stanley Park, which is just by the harbour and the Lions Gate bridge is a nice city garden – about 20 times better than the dodgy botanical gardens that Brisbane has to offer.  Stanley park also gave us great views back towards the Vancouver skyline.

Then we drove south towards the US border – but just before we got there we went towards the coast to the ferry terminal.  We caught the BC ferry across from Vancouver to Vancouver Island.  This was about a 90 minute crossing… very smooth and very picturesque as you weave through the San Jaun Islands.

Once at Vancouver Island the bus took us straight to the world famous Butchart Gardens.  Originally this was an old disused quarry but a woman transformed it into yet another amazing garden full of plants from around the world.  Butchart is another one of those places where words can’t really describe it, you just have to see it to believe it.

After the afternoon at Butchart we drove about 30 minutes down the road to the capital of British Columbia and the home of the 1994 Commonwealth Games – Victoria.

After checking into the Royal Scot Suites, where we were welcomed with and old guy playing a bagpipe… we took a night-time walk through the streets of Victoria.

In search of food we came across this great restaurant called The Old Spaghetti House – which was exactly what we were looking for – salad, pasta, garlic bread, dessert… all for $12 – great price and great tasting food.

On the way back from the restaurant to the hotel we walked behind the Houses of Parliament and ran across a family of Raccoons that were hanging around a tree.  They are a lot bigger than we thought – either that or we just came across some mutant ones.

Today was the day that Kerrina had dreamed of since she was in Grade 12 – we were finally hopping on board the (really) world famous Rocky Mountaineer train.  Gold Leaf class of course!

Two words – Spectacular.  Food.

In fact they are about the only words that can describe it – you really need to experience it yourself to understand just how breathtaking Western Canada can be!

We have plenty more photos and video of these great two days – we might save them until we get back though.

Today was another “do your own thing” day on the tour… so we slept in before some of the mandatory souvenir shopping before lunch.

In the afternoon we joined most of our tour group for a drive out to Maligne Lake, and the (apparently) world famous Spirit Island.  Half the bus hadn’t heard of it… and when we got there it was just an peninsula (not even an island!) with a few trees on it.  Those Spirit Island marketers are pretty good.

We then headed home back to Jasper on the lookout for more wildlife… but didn’t see much.

Well last night we didn’t end up going on our canoe trip… Kerrina was feeling a little under the weather.

But this morning Banff was under the weather… in fact we woke up to SNOW

We walked down the block under the falling snow flakes to a diner for breakfast… then we hoped on the bus for our journey to Jasper.

Along the way we stopped off at two of the main tourist attractions in between the two towns – Lake Louise, and the Columbia Ice Field.

Lake Louise looked beautiful, but not like in the postcards.  Fog and falling snow gave her a whole new look which was unexpected but great none the less.

After braving the cold, both of us headed inside the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise for what has to be the best hot chocolate on the planet!

Next we were on the bus again, heading towards the Columbia Ice Field – and in particular the Athabasca Glacier.  On the highway the bus slowed down due to some traffic up ahead – turned out there was a Black Bear on the side of the road.

Once at the Ice Field we hopped on board one of the custom built Ice Explorers which took us up onto the glacier.  We had seen glaciers before in New Zealand, but this was the first time we got to stand on one which was pretty cool (get it… cool!)

We then crept closer to Jasper… with one more stop along the way – a rafting trip down the Athabasca River.  Even though the brochure said we wouldn’t get wet, somehow everyone on the boat did… and the water was freezing cold – straight off the glacier.  But the landscapes were amazing.

About 2 hours later we were off the rafts and back on the bus for the final few minutes into Jasper.  To cap off a beautiful day before we arrived at the hotel we saw a group of Elk crossing the road.