Around the World in as long as it takes.

We stayed the night in Toronto and then headed off on the train the following day to Winnipeg.

En Route one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time happened....

We were delayed (but of course) and as we trundled along the tracks, the train suddenly came to an unscheduled stop.

Now we were beginning to find out the reasons for the delays on Canadian trains.... the most important one being that Freight gets priority over passengers in Canada

Yep... that's right..... if you're a cow on a train you get priority over people!

somewhat fitting I reckon, however..... annoying when you continually have to pull over as there's on single tracks along most of Canadian railways so you have to pull over to let a train full of wood go flying past !!!

Anyway…. The train had stopped and yet there was no other train heading in our direction. We popped our heads out of the window (which you weren’t supposed to do) and could see a guy carrying a Canoe on his back climbing on board the train!

Firstly…. A Canoe and a Kayak are different!
A Kayak had a top to it. A Canoe doesn’t. So if you capsize in a Canoe… you sink!

Secondly… What the heck was a guy in the middle of nowhere (we were surrounded by trees and nothing else… no station.… no town… no roads) doing flagging down the train.

Was he in danger…. Was he lost…. Was he a fugitive on the run……………

Nope…. Apparently… here in Canada you can do that !

Yep absolutely… you can flag down a passing train (albeit within a certain section of track….. which is about 500kms long) and the train will stop for you, pick you up… and take you to the next stop or wherever you want to go !

How cool is that !!!

I loved this about Canadian trains…. And since they’re obviously not in a rush to get anywhere particularly fast…. And we were already delayed by some 5 hours by this point… what the heck…eh ????!!!!

On the train, Steph and I got chatting to two older ladies sitting opposite and they said they’d had lunch with a Welsh Couple also on the train.

This couple turned out to be Simon and Natalie and they were staying in the same hostel as us in Winnipeg.

We arrived in the lovely Building that is Winnipeg Train Station and walked the mile or so to the hostel (Steph could have killed me for suggesting to walk as it was a nice night!)

Anyway, the four of us checked in and then (since it was getting late decided we’d head down the road for a shandy or two!)

We all stumbled in about 4am (I think) However…. I was in no state to do anything as I’d run out of cigarettes in the bar and had unbeknownst to myself, partaken in a very popular tradition in Canada…. Smoked some Dope !

Now this stuff was mental…. And I mean mental !

They don’t put tobacco or anything else in their joints over here…. And it’s really, really strong !

After a couple of puffs… I started to see Squares floating around the room and even though I tried to control it… peoples heads started to change into multicoloured squares also…. It was at this point I calmly walked up to Steph and asked if I could go home!

For some reason I insisted on getting a taxi back the 100 yards to the Hostel…. I don’t remember any of this.

The next day was a late one we walked into town and went on a short Boat trip along the river and walked across the new pedestrian suspension bridge.

We happened upon a load of First Nations or Aborigine people (Red Indian People like to be called either of these two names) and they were celebrating the start of a small festival in Winnipeg. Here the drums were beating and the People were dancing in a large Ring. The Children joined in and everyone seemed to be having a great time.

One guy was the Resident Hoop Dancer and as a result started the drums off so he could perform his hoop dance where he hurled himself in and out of the hoops and arranged them in geometric shapes.

I reckon we were all still drunk (or whatever) as we stood there watching for about an hour… just watching like in a trance (once again in my case!!)

We’d heard about a statue dedicated to a small bear who was the pet of a soldier that died in the war and was given to London Zoo. This bear was called Winnie (as it was from Winnipeg) and in turn was visited by A.A.Milne as a child and the rest is history.

The best I could do was to get a piccie of a Red Squirrel !!!

As a result... this guy was nicknamed Winnie also (as he was from Winnipeg Also!)

Unfortunately for us… it was well out of town and with hangovers in tow, none of us could be bothered traveling for 15 minutes in a taxi to see a statue… so we walked back to the Hostel via the Golden Boy on the Top of Legislative Building, where we saw the “Golden Boy” shining on top, walked along to the Corner of Portage and Main streets (which happened to be the windiest corner in Canada… something to do with the way the buildings are and how they funnel the air down to a single point)

Anyway, it was windy there so we weren’t disappointed… although the other guys didn’t seem as interested in seeing the Windiest corner in Canada as I was… I thought it was cool.

That night was a quiet one and we went to bed early ready for our train up to Churchill tomorrow.

We arrived at the station with Simon and Natalie as they were heading off to Jasper and their train was delayed also. We sat around and chatted before we said goodbye as they boarded their train and then two hours later Steph and I jumped on board the somewhat emptier train to Churchill…… spookily so !

We checked out of the Fairmont and with that said goodbye to flash hotels etc. for the next month or so... from here on in we were backpacking proper (or so we thought)

We boarded the Train with our prepared sandwiches at 6:30 pm.... luckily we'd been able to check in our luggage at 12pm and had spent the day wondering around the Massive Underground shopping mall (aka city) in Montreal.

We'd chatted to a Canadian Lady called Cathy who was also traveling to Halifax with us on the train and we all sat in which ever seats were available.

There's nothing too flashy about Economy class travel on Via Rail (Canada's National Rail Service)... just a seat, and small pull down table on the back of the seat in front and a foot rest (which did pop up though so it would have been great if you were about three foot tall!)

We were on the overnight train and funnily enough we did manage to get some sleep whilst wedged in our seats (I'd decided against using the Foot rest thingy as I kept getting pins and needles as my leg kept getting stuck in between the rest and the wall!!!)

Anyway, a day and half later.... we arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia!.... 4 hours late...... hmmm.....

Luckily for us, Cathy (the lady we'd been speaking to on the train) offered us a lift to our hostel) and we checked into the dorm before heading our for some supper. We crashed out early, ready for our exploration of Halifax City the following day.

Halifax is on the far East of Canada (only surpassed by Nova Scotia which is further
North and East) and as such is a large Port Town. As a result, the area we were staying in was a little bit run down, however, the centre of town and the waterfront was pleasant enough.

We’d been toying with the idea of doing a tour around the North of Nova Scotia and there was a company called “Salty Bear” that organized Backpacker trips around the area…. It wasn’t the cheapest, however, luckily they had a trip leaving in two days… so we booked ourselves on it.

The following day Cathy had offered to take us on a tour South of Halifax to the more touristy part of the Maritimes. She picked us up nice and early and we headed off towards Peggy’s Cove.

It was a lovely setting (much like the West of Ireland) however, the place was ransacked with Tourists We were also welcomed with a Scottish Bagpiper on entering the lighthouse and also an accordion player sat on the lighthouse door entrance…. All plying their trade well, however, somewhat annoyingly to anyone other than the droves of Americans and Canadians that seemed to love this stuff!!!!

“I’m from Ireland you know”….. yeah right !!! Maybe your great great great great great grand pappie was… that doesn’t mean you were…feckin idiots !

Anyway,
Having seen Peggy’s Cove and then popped down to Lunenberg (another old fishing town) Cathy dropped us off back at the hostel and we went to bed early ready for our Salty bear trip the following day.