From Toronto we were heading to Canada's next "big city" nicknamed Winterpeg by Canadians due to its extremely low winter temperatures. Winnipeg on our arrival was surprisingly warm. The journey from Toronto is long.... 38 hours to be precise. This is also providing that the train is running on time, which VIA rail are very quick to point out may not be the case. Unfortunately this is also one of Canada's less scenic route so come prepared to entertain yourselves. We were stocked up on food, snacks and had our travel kettle prepared for tea and coffee. Food on board is expensive so make sure you get it before you get on board because there are very few stops along the way. We were staying with a friend we had met while staying in Halifax. Tara our friendly Canadian had spotted fellow lesbians at the hostel and had approached. What quickly ensued was what Tara describes as the friend U-Haul. Within 24 hours of meeting she had decided we were cancelling our reservation in Winnipeg and staying with her. We rocked up to Tara's place after our epic journey and were welcomed into her home. Luckily we had Tara because I'm not sure what one does in Winnipeg without friends. We ate some really good Japanese, went down to the Forks, which was a First Nations trading post, and for the rest of the time we netflixed and chilled (the non dodgy kind) with our U-Haul friend. We sadly waved goodbye to Tara and Pusspuss (the cat) and headed towards Edmonton. We were stopping in Edmonton to stay with friends of ours we met and traveled with on our first trip. We had the most wonderful time during the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend being welcomed by our friend’s family for a big Thanksgiving dinner. Edmonton is another one of those places that you should really have friends for. We did enjoy our trip to North America's biggest mall though. From Edmonton it was off to Jasper. A word of warning the train is almost always delayed arriving in to Edmonton and it gets further and further behind schedule from there. This train journey is spectacular and if you can get a good seat in the dome carriage to view it will be well worth it. From here you can spot wildlife such as long horned sheep, bears, moose, caribou among other things. There are also beautiful mountain vistas and river views. Jasper is a great little mountain town, which is a jumping point for hikes and the Jasper National Park. We stayed at the H.I hostel 7km out of Jasper ($27.50 CAD pp. for a 36 bed female dorm) which runs a shuttle to and from town ($5 CAD) several times a day in summer and twice a day in winter but there are often people from the hostel who are driving to and from town. The walk in to town is also very pretty. If you are hoping to head to Banff from here be warned that other than hitching a ride with another traveller (possible at certain times) there is only one company that do this and it costs around $120 for the relatively short journey. While you're in Jasper something worth trying is the Bear Claws from the fudge shop in town. Also if you're coming from Vancouver or Edmonton it may be worth getting some groceries there, as they are expensive in Jasper. Due to the characteristically late arrival of the Jasper to Vancouver train we ducked in to the local microbrewery The Jasper Brewing Company (here we go again with the beer) to sample some of Jaspers finest brews. This was to be our last train journey in Canada and was just a gentle overnight trip arriving the next morning at 9am. This is another very scenic journey and well worth the trip. We were heading for Vancouver and the other coast of Canada. Vancouver is a great city for food and has some good tourist hotspots such as Gastown, Chinatown and the Grandville Market. It is a very walkable city and easy to navigate. We have a couple of friends in Vancouver so we split our stay between a friend’s house and an Air BnB ($70.60 AUD) in a central location. They have a thriving gay scene and until marriage equality was achieved in the states it was the most popular LGBT wedding location in Canada. Just be careful with the weather in Vancouver, as it is often wet. We also highly recommend the walking tours here (listed on our walking tour page) of Gastown, which was really interesting and also finishes up close to a very cool microbrewery called Steamworks which was worth a visit. Our last stop on our Canadian Tour was to Victoria on Vancouver Island. This involves a bit of an obscure journey from the centre of Vancouver. To get to Victoria we needed to catch a bus to the train station a train to the bus station then a bus to the ferry port ($5.50 CAD for bus/train and $17.20 CAD in for the ferry). This is a time consuming journey but is a lot cheaper than the alternative, which is a bus then ferry for . It is also well timed and a lot easier than it appears on paper. Once you reach Vancouver Island by ferry it is another bus to Victoria ($2 CAD). The ferry journey is an hour and a half, which is just long enough to grab a good buffet lunch on board. Seems a little strange but it’s a good buffet and some actually catch the boat just for lunch. In Victoria we stayed at the Ocean Island Inn ($27 CAD pp. for a 6 bed dorm), which we wouldn’t really recommend but unfortunately the H.I in Victoria has a couples dorm that excludes LGBT couples that meant we could not in good conscience support them. Victoria is a sweet little town to wander around. There is a floating market/community on the edge of town, which is really interesting and even has a few resident seals. Also of note is another microbrewery called Canoe Brew whish is a lovely bar to while away an afternoon. Victoria brought the end to our Canadian tour. Canada is a beautiful country with some very friendly and generous people. The thing about Canada though is it is really designed to cater to the outdoorsy types. As neither Dani nor I are in to hiking and we did not have a car a lot of Canada is inaccessible. What we were surprised by in Canada was their craft beer scene. You hear a lot about Portland, Oregon and Belgium and as a Kiwi expat living in Sydney I was aware of the developing scenes in New Zealand and Australia but Canada has some wonderful microbreweries from Nova Scotia to British Colombia. If you are in to craft beer I would seriously think about Canada on your list. Budget Time $$ What it actually cost: 42 days = $5803.23 Rail Passes: $1607.70 Food: $1419.30 Drinks: $568.55 Accomodation: $1406.46 Car Hire: $233.81 (including 1 prepaid tank of petrol/gas) Transport: $230.86 (tolls and public transport) Souvenirs: $190.59 Entertainment: $103.91 Miscellaneous: $42.02 Petrol/Gas: $28.07 From a budgeting point of view Canada was another interesting one for us. Having pre-bought our rail pass across the country and booked a number of AirBnBs we were again considering daily expenditures that were without two of the main daily budgeting considerations. Again though, we were pleasantly surprised by how much cheaper things in Canada could be with a little consideration and careful planning. A couple of little tips to keep costs down should you happen to do a trip that even vaguely resembles ours. 1) Never buy food on the train!! It is ridiculously expensive and often fairly poor quality. Yes, some of the journeys are unfeasibly long but just make a trip to a supermarket before you go and stock up on food and snacks that don't need refrigeration! (On a side note, we are actually those seriously weird backpackers that travel with a mini travel kettle and re-usable 'keep cups'. This may look and feel a bit strange at times but on the train this proved to be a life saver when we could have free tea and coffee whenever we wanted throughout many long journeys we took!) 2) Research public transport options and walking routes before you arrive in a new place. Everything in Canada is on a large scale and unless you plan really carefully you will often find that your accomodation isn't always close to train stations or major transport hubs. After a long and often uncomfortable journey on a train/bus it is incredibly tempting to just take the easy option! To avoid the urge to just 'jump in a cab' and waste $20-30 make sure you have an idea of means and routes to get to your final destination that do not involve this terrible money pit option! This piece of advice is a good one to follow in all countries and all cities! It also stops you getting ripped off by cab drivers if you do resort to a taxi as you'll have a good idea of how far you should be travelling and therefore how long it should take and how much it should cost! 3) If you are heading to Jasper or Banff for a short trip try to buy your groceries before you get there. Both of these National Parks are out of the way and therefore all of the supermarkets have extortionately high prices for everything! 4) Consider the different tax rates in each province. Alberta has the lowest tax rate of all of the provinces in Canada so if you need to buy electronics or anything expensive while you are in Canada and you are planning on going through Alberta then wait until you get there...you wouldn't believe how much you could save. (Avoid provinces like Nova Scotia, Québec and British Columbia for these kinds of things) Overall, Canada was definitely not as expensive as we thought it was going to be. This was partly because we made friends along the way who offered us places to stay meaning we saved on accomodation and transport in cities, but also just because good planning and organisation meant we didn't fall into evil money traps. We did not skimp in Canada (as you can see from the amount of beer that we drank) but we were careful not to waste our money in this relatively expensive North American destination. LGBT: Canada is an extremely LGBT friendly nation, having recently celebrated 10 years of marriage equality and having their prime minister march in pride. In most cities we visited there was a very large celebrated community and everywhere we went there were pride flags in windows and rainbow stickers on doors. This even extended to smaller places like Halifax, NS and Jasper, AB. The only places we heard of any major conservatism was in Alberta and even then everyone we met was lovely.
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