I have mentioned in my last blog that my passion is meeting people, listening to their story, feeling the passion and communicating that to the world. I thought I would expand a little on that. 

My last ten years have been involved in doing just that. In my work as a writer, I have met many people who are passionate about something. I would interview them, listen to their story and feel their passion. I would then communicate that to the world through magazine articles, children’s education books and travel guide books. 

In hind sight, this all began in my childhood. My childhood passion was daggy. Really daggy. I loved doing school projects. There was nothing better for me than to have a brand new sketch book, pile of magazines and my World Book Encyclopaedia. This was the days before PowerPoint, Google and Wikipaedia. 

I liked them so much I did them on my school holidays. It turn out I was quite good at them because two were chosen to be put on the shelves of the school library. I was so proud of my achievements back then. I didn’t know how that would effect my life further down the track. 

I recently contact my school to see how many books I had on the school library shelves. I realise that 35 years later, my school projects wouldn’t be there. There were instead 30 books with me as author. I did wonder why, they only had 30 out of 70 of my books. But 30 will do for now. 

I am now fascinated how many people knew what there passion was as a child, lost it and found it again as adults. So what was your childhood passion?

For the last twenty years, the Rocky Mountaineer has wound its way from Vancouver to Jasper or Banff. It follows the Fraser River and then the Thompson River up to the Rocky Mountains. Yesterday’s trip brought us to Jasper. We decided to throw caution to the wind and get the gold leaf class, for photographic reasons of course. The glass dome allows for great viewing. It wouldn’t have been for the fine dining in the dining car or complimentary drinks for two days – of course not.

Day one is very much about getting out of the metropolitan area, then travelling through the Fraser Valley, probably the food basket of British Columbia. Then we reached what they called the mountain deserts. A dry desolate area with steep sided mountains and glacial fed rivers passing through. Many were spotting ospreys and bald eagles.

The overnight stop is Kamloops, the tournament centre of British Columbia. Kamloops is considered the geographical centre of BC so they hold most state sporting competitions here. It is also the major junction of all the Canadian Railway. This is where the fifteen carriage train splits into smaller trains destined for Jasper, Banff and Calgary.

The second day of the train journey is Rocky Mountain day. As luck has it, our carriage is the last caboose. That means our viewing platform is not obstructed by having a carriage behind. While watching the scenery on the upper glass dome carriage, the lower level is being prepared for our breakfast and then lunch.  Breakfast included croissants, fresh fruit and freshly cooked eggs or pancakes. Each gold class carriage has its own fully equipped kitchen and chefs.

Lunch was a three course extravaganza with red and white wine. The lunch menu changes each day. Between us we had the salmon, chicken and pork.  But enough of the food. We are really here for the scenery.

The first sign of the Rocky Mountains was a peak with some remnant snow and ice on the top. Most of the snow has melted due to the hot summer experienced in Western Canada.  Mount Robson is the highest peak in the Rocky Mountains and is visible only for sixteen days a year. Well today was one of them – not a cloud in the sky. The train slowed to “Kodak speed” and hundreds of shots were taken. Other highlights were Moose Lake (without the moose unfortunately). 

Once arriving in Jasper we farewelled our carriage crew of two days and headed for the Jasper Park Lodge. The next stage begins.