Still going.....

.....and, ten days on, I've made it as far as Ottawa.

I left Vancouver on The Canadian train which took me, in four days, across the country to Toronto. Through the Rockies, over the prairies and through verdant, fertile Ontario. Cloud in the mountains meant that the views were too lacking in contrast for any decent photographs but there were some stunning views.

The prairies, really the bread-basket of the country were vast; coming from our small island, I'm still struggling with the vastness of this astonishing country. Until we turned south towards Toronto and Lake Ontario there was snow and ice on every river and lake we saw, to remind us of the harsh winter they endured here.

Although the journey by train was relaxing and enjoyable, the majority of the line is single-track and we had to keep moving onto the sidings to let the freight trains past. There were a lot of these going to the port at Vancouver and they were spectacularly long - I counted 99 wagons on one! These delays added ten hours to our trip and rather took the edge off it.

After getting off at Toronto, I went down to Hamilton to stay with a friend who I originally made contact with though our shared family history (I knew I could get genealogy in this post somehow!). She took me out and about, most memorably to Niagara (photo below, hopefully). A few days with her and now I'm in Ottawa, prior to moving on to Montreal in the morning.

More soon.