The Rockies,Day 3

A new day dawns with the eastern sky shot through with palest peach.

We breakfast as the train pulls into Edmonton to take on more travellers and add a panoramic car to the 17 cars already making up the train.

It's cold outside as we stretch our legs on the platform, but the sun is shining and the trees are at last beginning to come into leaf here.

Back on board in the new coach, I look out of the window onto forests of conifers. I have lost his Lordship who is wedded to his computer back in the cabin. Each to his own he says.

We pass the enormous lake Wabuman, still frozen at its eastern end, but sparkling a deep blue at the other end with families of ducks making Vshaped ripples on the water surface.

We look down into a deep gorge with a river in its depths. Such a difference from the vast flat grass prairies of Saskatchewan and Alberta.

The ground is rising now and the engine changes gear and slows. Snowy peaks stand jagged on the horizon as we head for Jasper, the centre of skiing and winter sports, right in the middle of the eponymous National Park.

An hour's stop affords us enough time for a beer and an icecream before our last evening and night on the train.

Tomorrow Vancouver.