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After all the helpful advice you gave me when I came to Canada, it would be my pleasure to help in anyway that I can. If you should happen to find yourself in Adelaide, I would be more than happy to meet up with you for coffee and act as tour guide. Smiler

Thank you for your kind offer, but I was asking for a friend that has never been down under. My best memories of Sydney are your zoo and the opera house. The two cities I would like to go back to are Melbourne and Adelaide and I would like to go to Darwin.

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Originally posted by mid life traveller:

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After all the helpful advice you gave me when I came to Canada, it would be my pleasure to help in anyway that I can. If you should happen to find yourself in Adelaide, I would be more than happy to meet up with you for coffee and act as tour guide. Smiler

Thank you for your kind offer, but I was asking for a friend that has never been down under. My best memories of Sydney are your zoo and the opera house. The two cities I would like to go back to are Melbourne and Adelaide and I would like to go to Darwin.

MLT

You know I am from Adelaide and so naturally love it here, but after my trip to Melbourne with the other BB girls, I fell in love with Melbourne and would go back there at the drop of a hat.

Darwin is coming along in leaps and bounds, the best time to visit Darwin is in our winter between June and August, outside of those months it is just to hot and humid.

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Darwin is coming along in leaps and bounds, the best time to visit Darwin is in our winter between June and August, outside of those months it is just to hot and humid.

Just like Alice Springs and Ayers Rock. The only time to visit is July and August. I've been there, done that, and don't feel a need to go back. I know that it has changed since I was there by becoming more touristy, but I would rather remember it the way I saw it.

MLT,

I feel like I am a very luck person to have experienced so many different countries with their different terrains, and we always feel as if we want what we don't necessarily have.

I was so enthralled by the Rockies, mainly because it is something we don't have here in Australia. Believe me Australians get sick of the sight of "Red dirt" but to other it is very unique.

The thing I love most about North America and Europe is the greenery and the water, I have never seen so much water in my life. Today I was looking at some photo's of a trip on the Rocky Mountaineer that a friend on mine did back in 2001. I was so amazed at the water levels compared to what I saw back in May this year, Canada must have experienced low rain fall in 2001.

Missie the water levels depend on the time of the year, but we also have droughts. I don't remember as far back as 2001 but I know there were droughts in 2004 and maybe 2003, we had a lot of forest fires.
The water levels in the Rockies mainly rise due to snow melt which is usually towards the end of May and in June. If July and August are fairly dry which is common the levels become lower. I know that June is Calgary"s wettest month but I'm not sure about the interior of BC, it can be pretty dry and arid in Kamloops, Kelowna area.

Missie, we do have a great deal of water not just in the part of the country you saw but if you look at a map of Ontario a great deal of the province is lakes to say nothing of the Great Lakes which are really inland seas. The bad news is that with the lack of snowfall in the last few winters in this province anyway, and not as much rain together with some very hot and dry summers, the levels of the Great Lakes have been going down, and that is worrisome. However, I undersand they're now coming back up, so it's perhaps a cyclical thing. We've also gone to great lengths to clean up the mess we've made of the Great Lakes, and they're not too bad up here, and fish are returning.

It's been said that the next great world struggle will be for fresh water and if that's the case, Canada will be in trouble because we have so much. We're so far very lucky but a couple of decades down the line, I don't know.

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Originally posted by Marie56:
Missie the water levels depend on the time of the year, but we also have droughts. I don't remember as far back as 2001 but I know there were droughts in 2004 and maybe 2003, we had a lot of forest fires.
The water levels in the Rockies mainly rise due to snow melt which is usually towards the end of May and in June. If July and August are fairly dry which is common the levels become lower. I know that June is Calgary"s wettest month but I'm not sure about the interior of BC, it can be pretty dry and arid in Kamloops, Kelowna area.

Marie, when I arrived in Vancouver I thought you were in the middle of a heatwave, the airport was so hot, a local said to me that they have just started to have some warm weather and that it would take the airport a few days for the airconditioning system to kick in, I thought that comment a little unusual, but of course said nothing.

Because the warm weather arrived a few days before we did the snow started melting at a very quick pace, it was fantastic to see especially as I never get to see snow in Australia.

I remember one day when I was in Banff thinking to myself, this is not a place I would want to be in a bushfire, I don't see anyway out of the town as it is surrounded by thick forest.

I know when I was on the Rocky Mountaineer, the staff were ever vigilent about smoking, if anyone was caught smoking on the train they were immediately put off and after seeing your beautiful forests I can completely understand why.

Missie, I am glad you got to see the snow on the mountains, it looks so much prettier then, rather than the stark grey peaks. I am glad you enjoyed your visit here although you were unlucky with the rain in Vancouver. Vancouver is a very beautiful city, were you not able to see the mountains on the north shore of Vancouver?

Marie, the rain really didn't spoil anything for me in Vancouver, Vancouver is such a beautiful city, I can thoroughly recommend to anyone going there to do the Hop on hop off tour and you so easily get your bearings from that. I enjoyed that trip so much I would love to return with my husband and stay one week in Vancouver and one week in Victoria then go and do eastern Canada, if I can convince him to travel.

Missie, that sounds like a good plan. We used to live in Montreal and I love eastern Canada too. I have the same problem with my hubby. I think I have to travel on my own in the future, but my plans are for Italy, Scotland, France and maybe Switzerland.

Marie, you know I think it is time Trafalgar organised a single's tour, 38 - whatever age tour, including good food, good single accommodation, excellent seat rotation and onboard wine service.

What do you think?

On board wine service? Couples would be travelling as singles to get that.

I get a great whine service when travelling with my wife!

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Originally posted by steveH:
I get a great whine service when travelling with my wife!

Steve, you are going to be in big trouble when Merry gets back and reads the board.

Missie, my mouse is poised over the 'delete' icon - just as long as I am not quoted, everything will be fine!