May 11th - The Pas to Dauphin

The Kikiwak Inn, owned and run by First Nation Cree, was a great success. Good rooms, a reasonable dining room for dinner and breakfast and reasonably priced, especially when compared with hotels like Chateau Lake Louise!

Our drive today was about 400kms down Highway 10 and then using minor roads for the last 150kms into Dauphin. As we left The Pas we went past the railway yards. One of the lasting impressions we will take from this Canadian drive will be the Canadian railways. We have never seen such enormous trains that are often made up of more than a hundred wagons. When you pass one on the road they seem to go on for ever!

The engines we saw in The Pas railway yards were typical of the type used all over Canada and are huge in comparison to European engines.

The road south was virtually empty and we saw very few cars or trucks heading north and only came up behind two cars in over 250kms!!

With the risk of being boring here are two more photos of typical Canadian long straight roads that disappear into the distance.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to have roads like this in England??

As you can see from the second photo the weather was not perfect and we drove through one shower after another, some quite heavy. As we drove over one bridge I glanced to the river below and saw a flock of white pelicans. It was such an unexpected sight.

Shortly afterwards we turned off Highway 10 and drove about 100kms to the shores of Lake Winnipegosis. The weather had changed and we parked up at a small beach in bright sunshine. We had a snack lunch and took this photo of Bob and Thelma in front of their Landcruiser.

Just behind Bob and Thelma towards the top left of the photo there was a colony of pelicans and cormorants. We walked over and took some photos. The pelicans are really beautiful birds.

The remainder of the drive was due south to our overnight stop in Dauphin. As we drove in to the motel we were greeted by Kenny and DeeAnne, who had driven a slightly different route to our one and gave us the news that David Cameron was Prime Minister!! This was a real surprise as the last news we had heard was that Labour and the Lib Dems were trying to form a coalition.

We will celebrate this evening with a good bottle, or two, of wine!!

We have now driven just under two thousand miles and we are not yet halfway across Canada. It is an enormous country and a great one with wonderfully friendly people. We have loads more to look forward to as we head for Winnipeg, where we stay two nights, and then on to Ontario province.