Before the railway arrived this was very much the backwoods, the first task of the railway pioneers was to find a route through the Rockies which was passable, no accurate maps existed so this was true exploration just 160 years ago! Despite not seeing a train go through Spiral Tunnel yesterday they seemed to pass through Revelstoke almost continuously today, it is bad news if you are stuck at a level crossing when one goes through, the average train is between 1.2 and 1.4 miles long and they don’t go fast so you can switch the engine off and have a sleep before you get going again.

The other interesting aspect of the coming of the railway was the introduction of clocks. before then time did not matter, now everything is managed on standard Pacific time and one of the most important shops in the town was the jeweller/clockmaker.

Gill has pointed out I did not mention that we spotted bears yesterday, I almost ran over a mother and two cubs that ran across the road, we did not get pictures to prove it.

Tomorrow we head south to a more touristy place called Nelson where we are staying for three nights.