We’re up at five am after a sleepless night in the not-very-gorgeous hotel at Kamloops, to assemble for buses to go to the station to climb back on the Rocky Mountaineer passenger train. We are seriously tired but today we’re to be in the first sitting for breakfast, which will surely lift us. There’s nothing like a few calories to gee up a flagging body. We leave our luggage in the lobby, confident, now that it will arrive at tonight’s destination before we do.

Today’s journey promises to be much more dramatic, since we’ll be travelling to and within some of the very best scenery along the route.

While we are breakfasting- enjoying treats from the same delicious menu as yesterday- we rumble out of Kamloops station past sidings and rolling stock. Some of the engines here have snow plough equipment on the front.

Soon we’re back out into rolling countryside, which becomes wilder and more rugged as we progress, the hills becoming higher, the gorges deeper. Sometimes we cross a river on a spindly bridge, the open sides dropping away in a breathless swoon of steep drop.

At last we’re high enough for proper mountains and at last, white tops, clouds swirling above- the fringes of pine trees ending where bare rock does not allow.

During the afternoon- and following another gourmet feast of lunch- some of our fellow passengers succumb to a snooze and I find myself briefly snatching the odd five minutes as lack of sleep catches up with us. But the scenery is becoming more spectacular as we roll on and I’m reluctant to miss anything.

We’re near to a town called ‘Field’ when the train does a spectacular thing. In order to gain height and pass through the mountains, it must enter the mountainside and run up a succession of three ‘loops’ in the darkness. Each loop provides a little more height. Of course, we’re unable to see anything at all until the train emerges from the final loop, but we do get a brief glimpse of the entrance, below us as we exit the mountain. These are the ‘Spiral Loops’. What an amazing feat of engineering!

We’re much nearer to the snowy mountain tops now, the sunshine punctuated by some showers and we have the sense that we are really here- right in the Canadian Rockies.

A delicious afternoon snack comes around- a choice of salty nuts or chocolatey nuts and raisins. It’s a welcome treat when we’re flagging from tiredness. To descend the steps to the footplate feels much chillier now that we’re higher up. The afternoon is ebbing away and there’s late sunlight as we draw towards Lake Louise, where some of the passengers are to be disgorged. Lake Louise is a hot tourist spot- as we are to discover later on in the trip!

But we stay as the twilight descends and at last we’re slowing down for Banff, where our train journey is to end. There’s a last farewell from the four staff who’ve looked after us for two days and a welcome comittee waiting beside the tracks to pipe us in! Then we’re stumbling down off the train and up into buses again.

It’s dark and I feel stretched with fatigue. The bus is to take us to the Rimrock Hotel, which we’re dismayed to learn is up and out of the town. We’d been hoping it was near the centre and walking distance. When the bus pulls up, however, we’re given bus passes for the shuttle that makes frequent trips to and from the town.

At last we’re into the hotel, which is, even from glancing round at the lobby, a vast improvement on last night’s! Having found our vast, comfortable room and checked that our luggage is there, we go down to the lounge area and collapse into a sofa before ordering a bowl of fries and a drink- some soporific calories before bed.

Once i’ve showered I clamber into the huge, luxurious bed and sleep and sleep and sleep…

Grace is the alter ego of novelist and short story writer, Jane Deans. To date I have two published novels to my name: The Conways at Earthsend [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Conways-at-Earthsend-Jane-Deans-ebook/dp/B08VNQT5YC/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2ZHXO7687MYXE&keywords=the+conways+at+earthsend&qid=1673350649&sprefix=the+conways+at+earthsend%2Caps%2C79&sr=8-1 and The Year of Familiar Strangers [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Year-Familiar-Strangers-Jane-Deans-ebook/dp/B00EWNXIFA/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2EQHJGCF8DSSL&keywords=The+year+of+familiar+strangers&qid=1673350789&sprefix=the+year+of+familiar+strangers%2Caps%2C82&sr=8-1 Visit my writer Facebook page [https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=jane%20deans%2C%20novellist%2C%20short%20fiction%20and%20blog or my website: https://www.janedeans.com/