And so to Saskatchewan...and Manitoba

After a quiet night in the church parking lot we awoke pretty early on 29th July, refreshed and ready to go. But go where? We'd already booked a site just over the Ontario border for 30th July so although we wanted to make progress we wanted to leave ourselves  with a reasonable, but neither too short or too long, a trip on 30th July. The other factor working against us today was that as we cross into Manitoba we'd effectively lose an hour as we move into Central time.

A survey of the route had given us some ideas for where we might stop, one of them being at the Virden Lions Campground, MB. I called the campground and reserved a spot for us. I was a little concerned that if we didn't make it that far we'd lose our deposit however, being run by the Lions volunteers, there was no requirement to pay a deposit. I was told that on arrival I should park in our designated spot and someone would be around later to collect the fee. The other upside was that if we were a no-show for whatever reason we wouldn't have had to pay anything.

The drive through Saskatchewan proved uneventful enough with a gas stop in Hanley and a coffee stop in Chamberlain for 45 minutes. We'd stopped in Chamberlain on the drive west but here's the picture of the grain elevator again in case you missed it! We hadn't spotted it on the drive west but, just by the grain elevator, on the same side was a large, graveled, rest area. There were one or two semi trucks pulled in there and we joined them for our break.

We continued pushing eastward, making good time through Regina and took a Tim Horton's lunch break in Indian Head, SK at 12.38pm having driven 358km so far today. 

Not for the first time, the actual parking lot at Tim's was a bit small for anyone pulling a trailer but fortunately there was an area of 'waste' land on the north side of Tims so we pulled onto that, had lunch and watched a train roll slowly by. It was only after we'd had our Tim's lunch and gassed up the car we realised that the 'Indian Head' was just across the junction from Tims so we pulled over there to investigate.

 

 

 

 

 

Thirty minutes or so after pulling in to Indian head we were pulling out again and crossed into Manitoba at 3.10pm - whoops - make that 4.10pm!

A little further on and we pulled in the Virden Lions campground at 5.00pm Central time. 

After talking with someone at the campground by phone earlier in the day I had been allocated site number 7 for the trailer. We found site 7 easily enough but we were a bit concerned as to whether or not we could get the trailer onto the site due to a low hanging branch! We decided to give it a go and after some careful manoeuvring managed to get the trailer under the branch with about 15cm to spare! We had driven a comfortable 482km today with an estimated drive of 540km tomorrow but with no time change..

Whilst setting up and exploring the park a little we got into conversation with a woman also traveling east with her two dogs for company. She was pulling her trailer from the Vancouver area to Kitchener, ON. She was pulling her smallish distinctive, cream coloured, rounded corner trailer, with a blue Toyota SUV. She said she'd done a long drive that day and was just overnighting in Virden. Consequently she said that the next day or two would be shorter drives and that she'd be headed through Dryden, ON. We told her we really enjoyed our two night stop in Dryden and she shouldn't miss the 'Pieces of Dryden' mosaic and the suspension bridge. Later that evening a woman came around as expected to collect our fees. The campground was actually quite large with some large motorhomes and trailers towards the back of the park, there seemed to be plenty of unoccupied sites so we don't know why we wee squeezed into site number 7.

Homeward bound

 Having  been round and about Stony Plain, Alberta, for 4 1/2 weeks we just had to leave to get back home :-(

So on 28th July we sadly said our farewells and started the long drive east at 9.50am. It wasn't too long before we were back in Vegreville for our first stop for gas and coffee as well as to return something to Canadian Tire that we hadn't had chance to return previously. Then it was quickly back on the highway (at midday) to our planned lunch stop near Maidstone, Saskatchewan. That was when we encountered our first hiccup of the return trip! Just west of Maidstone is, or should be, a popular rest area (campsite for those staying over). However we pulled to the north of the highway and the barrier to the area was padlocked closed, with a faded sign swinging in the light breeze advising us that the rest area was closed due to Covid 19 restrictions. Arrived there at 2.30pm.

Despite being on a narrow, 2 lane side road we managed to reverse our rig into the entrance way of the area and park there for lunch and pulled out at 3.40pm, didn't manage to get a nap as it was still just too hot to be comfortable. 

We were a little concerned we'd be moved on when a truck squeezed in alongside us but the driver informed us he only pulled in because he was geocaching and this site was on his place to search.

It certainly looked as if the place had been abandoned though I guess it had been closed  technically since March 2020 but in practice from Fall 2019 since surely no-one would be camping there in winter?

After our rest we continued on our uneventful way where our next stop was North Battleford, SK. We'd stopped there on our drive west and had a pleasant enough boondocking experience at the civic park but this time we simply gassed up and drove off again by 5.10pm.

Not being too sure of how far we might get that first day I did not book anywhere to stop that first evening, we didn't know if we would leave Stony Plain early or midday and what other stops we might make. However (there's always an 'however'!) I had noted several boondocking options from ioverlander.com website but also did some research of my own. I had identified the small town of Langham, SK, as a good distance to have traveled in one day but there were no boondocking sites around there I could find. I did find a church on the edge of town with two good size parking lots. A quick look at Google street view gave me the contact name and email address so I fired off a request to use their parking lot if I happened to be in that area at a convenient time and I got an OK, no problem reply. So it was that we pulled into the church parking lot at 6.30pm after a drive of 535km.

Time for supper, a read and bed.....zzzzz.

West, east and inbetween

 Having posted blogs of the trip out west and some of the things we did while there  I also some some photos and videos that don't quite seem to belong anywhere but wanted to post anyway.

Having come from the UK I don't think I would attempt to travel in the UK as far as we did on a typical day in Canada. UK roads (motorways), despite having more traffic lanes are much more congested and there are frequently accidents,causing long tailbacks as well as roadworks. So, for my UK viewers, I have some video and photos of part of a typical day of driving. Between provinces the landscape varied quite a lot. In Ontario the highway was typically tree lined with not much to see either side (except when Lake superior was to one side!) 

but in the prairie provinces (Saskatchewan and Alberta in particular) the trees disappeared and we had wide open vistas to enjoy. The prairies were not as flat as I'd imagined them to be, I found driving them relatively good as the roads were pretty straight and flat. 

The highway we took through Ontario was quite hilly and windy in places, especially when puling a trailer and wanting to make good progress. The one thing all the provinces had in common was that gas stations can be few and far between, something to keep an eye on if your vehicle gas tank is on the small side and gas consumption is on the high side!

You may recall that on the drive over we'd seen a black bear, that was to be our most 'wild' wildlife we encountered although we did come across a deer (there were several deer here actually but only one on the dash cam, the others had already crossed the road) in one park as well as a busy beaver in a pond.

 

Something else the UK viewers may not appreciate is the length of goods trains and that most rural towns have railroad crossings in them, I guess because the towns grew up around grain elevator locations that need train tracks alongside to ship the grain to market. It was not uncommon to have to stop at railroad crossing to wait for train to pass. In this video the train took almost 3 minutes to pass by though I did clip the video to much shorter than that. 

We lost count of how many rail cars were part of that train but it was a lot!

It would be bad of me to not include a video of Sarah on the trampoline showing us her skills. 

Good job Sarah 👍

Just desserts

With our time out west rapidly coming to an end as we need to get back home to Ontario there was a quick trip to the Cheesecake Cafe in Stony Plain. Being another hot, sunny day we took a table on the patio but having been given menus there were no cheesecakes in sight! It turned out that despite it's name, Cheesecake Cafe was pretty much a regular restaurant with the usual offering of burgers, fish & chips, pizza etc although there were cheesecakes on the dessert menu. We went straight for the desserts in that case! The cheesecake portions were all a good size and more than one person took the remains of theirs home to finish off at a later time.

Vermilion Provincial Park

By now we were used to the routine of being at the house and going away on a camping trip on the weekend. It came as a bit of a surprise to all of us to discover that our final 'weekend' camping trip in Alberta was mistakenly booked for Wednesday through Saturday. After a little hasty planning and packing on Tuesday we were off on Wednesday morning for the short trip east of Edmonton to Vermilion Provincial Park.

After the fishing excitement from the Goose Lake trip a couple more fishing rods had been purchased to see what we could pull from the trout pond at Vermilion. Unfortunately it seems most or all of the stocked trout had already been pulled out by the time we got there. We failed to get anything like a bite while fishing at the pond. There were one or two busy beavers on the river though.....

It was a pretty relaxing time though with continued good weather and plenty of entertainment from the dozens of prairie dogs.

As well as relaxing around the site we played games, flew kites 

and explored the town. Unfortunately there were only S'mores on the first night. We purchased firewood for the first night but on Thursday we were told we should not have been sold the wood due to the extreme fire risk and there being a complete ban on outdoor fires.

Stony Plain Pioneer Museum

 Just a few minutes drive from our Stony Plain base, a Google map search revealed that Stony Plain has a Pioneer museum and so why wouldn't we visit! We actually visited twice as on our first visit the girls naturally wanted to explore outside and were not interested in the indoor exhibits. 

Not knowing what the museum offered before our first visit we didn't know how long to allow and consequently we were a little short of time.The Town Hall building is currently home to a collection of more than 500 oil and gas lamps with some spectacular specimens on display. Upstairs in the Town Hall is a magnificent model railway layout, built, maintained and developed by a small band of volunteers (more always welcome!) as well as a smaller, portable, layout to take to regional events.

The Pioneer Museum collects items of historical interest from Parkland County and presents the stories of these items to visitors from far and wide and even not so far and wide. Most of the Museum work, such as machinery restoration, building restoration and maintenance, archiving artifacts, guiding tours and hosting events, is done by a large group of volunteers. 

The museum sits on 14 acres at the western edge of Stony Plain. 

 There are a wide range of restored and reconstructed buildings on site such as a schoolhouse, blacksmithy, trapper's cabins etc as well as a large selection of vehicles from the period when the region was being settled and in it's early development. 

Unfortunately I did not take sufficient photographs to do the museum justice, you'll just have to visit yourself! There are lots of buildings to explore as well as some of the larger buildings with hundreds of items on display.

The Pioneer Museum partners with other organisations for some of the major events in the town, such as Farmers' Days, Canada Day, The Blueberry Bluegrass Festival and the Stony Plain Cowboy Gathering.

Goose Lake

 Another weekend another trip but this time north of Edmonton to Goose Lake Campground, a private park about 200km north west of Edmonton.

The weather was not the best but we did set up in the dry but shortly after it started to rain which continued through to Saturday mid-morning though it was not a downpour. Consequently Friday evening was spent in the trailer tent playing games and eating snacks. Saturday morning revealed that we'd had a deer run through our site at about 9pm Friday evening while we were in the trailer. The trail cam still makes it look like it was a two legged deer!

That action was the only worthwhile footage from the trail cam the WHOLE trip so I have to include it.

Breakfast had been planned to be a fry up but we quickly discovered the eggs had gone off 😞. We quickly switched the plan to sausage sandwiches though Lauren went for a starter of a bowl of cereals.

Once the rain had cleared we went for a walk around one of the nearby trails, some of us were happier to go for the walk than others!

Having not gotten lost or eaten by a bear we were soon back at the campsite for lunch.

After lunch I decided to investigate the fishing so set off a couple of hundred metres away to the fishing spot. Since the dock was occupied by others fishing I fished from the lake shoreline. It soon became apparent that there were fish actively feeding and, after catching and releasing two perch, I 'ran' back to the campsite to get reinforcements who might like to fish. We were soon 3 of us fishing (although we only had two rods) and after a quick lesson on casting the two novices soon caught their very first fish. The perch were not of an edible size so they were mostly safely returned to the lake. Mother and daughter both ended the session with a total of four perch each, well done!

Having worked up great excitement we returned to the campsite for some games before supper of Doritos and mince - but not before some S'mores - yum!

 

 

 

All too soon it was time for bad....... 😴😴😴😴😴.

Sunday morning and it was time for a leisurely breakfast before packing up and heading back to Stony Plain. If we'd realised it though we would have headed north on highway 33 instead of south in order to visit the geographic centre of Alberta about 20km up the highway. 

As it was, we had decided to take a short detour into Fort Assiniboine to visit the world's largest cart wheel and pick axe with a mural thrown in for extra measure. 

Having deliberately taken one, short, detour, we retraced our steps to get back to Stony Plain but having been a little confused by some highway signage we missed the turn to Barrhead where we'd planned to fill up with gas. Uh-oh! We'd already experienced that turning around on a single lane carriageway is not recommended so we continued east (instead of west/south) and took a side turning through the township of Freedom. It didn't bring us much freedom though as the gravelled road changed to a muddy, potholed track. However, taking it slowly we finally come onto road 654 which joined highway 33 though south of Barrhead. Although gas was getting lower than we were comfortable with rather than head up to Barrhead we turned south. By the time we came onto highway 43 gas was of course much lower so we turned west for 1km to Gunn where we put enough gas to get up back though for the first time on the trip we didn't fill up as the price was1.379/l which was quite a bit more than we were used to paying. Feeling relieved with sufficient fuel we headed back to Stony Plain where we filled ourselves up with some tasty KFC before headed back to base.

Constable Chelsey Robinson Park

Having had time to recover from the drive we were by now getting out and about a little more and with the heatwave continuing where better to head to next than a spot where we might be able to cool off in the water.

So we headed south to the Constable Chelsey Robinson park on the North Saskatchewan River where we had a good time. The park is in quite a valley and there was a fair breeze blowing which helped cool us a little. The water was not too cold at all, however the current a little way from shore was EXTREMELY strong so we didn't venture too deep but I'd like to have known how the folks on the island in the middle of the river made it out there!

Edmonton High Level Streetcar

 Since seeing the Edmonton High Level Streetcar promoted by Michael Portillo on British TV it's been on my radar as something to visit when the opportunity arose and what better opportunity than being in the Edmonton area for a few weeks. The streetcars (of which there are 3 or 4)

For a few dollars we purchased our return tickets and patiently waited for the streetcar to emerge from it's garage as we we there for the first journey of the day.

This streetcar was actually imported from Melbourne, Australia when the streetcar system there was no longer required (or was upgraded?)

Then the car was reversed alongside the platform to allow us fare paying passengers to board.

With a good complement of passengers we finally set off for the journey from the Strathcona district, across the river to the Jasper terminus, a distance of about 3km.

Along the way are various stops where, if you are so inclined you can get off to explore and re-board a later streetcar.

 

The streetcar passes over the high level bridge from which you can get great views of Downtown Edmonton (note Alberta Legislature on the left hand side of picture, just above the treeline) and the surrounding area.

 

 

 

After reaching the Jasper terminus we walked back a little way to the Alberta legislature gardens for more sightseeing of the legislature, the gardens and get a different view of the high level bridge. You might notice that in this shot of the legislature from 'the ground' you cannot see the green clad scaffolding just below the cupola that is visible in the picture of downtown (and that's a good thing!).

After exploring we headed back up to the streetcar stop nearest the legislature just in time to catch it back to the Strathcona terminus.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Arriving back in Strathcona we spotted an interesting looking building opposite the streetcar barn which turned out to be the Connaught armoury as well as some modern day murals.

Then it was back to our car and head back to base.