James Shearer

At 3.30pm, Thursday the 16th of June 2005, Vanessa and I were married beneath a birch tree in Queen Elizabeth Park, Vancouver, British Columbia.

Our special day was made even more special by the efforts put in by our friends and family to make it to Vancouver for our wedding.

There will soon be some photos and various other things on our wedding website so keep an eye out. In the meantime, we would both like to thank our friends and family who came and the many people who contributed to making our wedding day what it was - a truly wonderful experience for everyone.

Personally, I couldn’t have asked for a better day or a better outcome - being married to Vanessa, the woman I love
Thanks honey for being you.

James.

Just over 3 years ago I arrived in Canada to start on what would become an epic journey across the 2nd largest nation on the planet. The diary I wrote whilst on the road which sparked the development of Trail Canada is available to read online.

My travel diary across Canada

Ok, so it has been ages since I put anything on here. I guess now is a good time since there have been a few developments.

Right now, I’m sitting in my apartment gazing out the floor to ceiling windows over looking a huge sandy beach and the Pacific Ocean. I have to say that of all the places I’ve lived, this is definately one with an amazing view and possibly an unbeatable lifestyle.

I moved here, to Vancouver, a few months ago and although winter is here and I am in Canada after all, there is no snow. Not a hint of it. Yesterday, the sun was shining, it was 12 degrees, beautiful blue skies yet 35 minutes from here I was able to trudge through metre deep snow on Grouse Mountain.

Trail Canada is going from strength to strength. In case you didn’t know, Trail Canada is my network of Canadian travel websites which are the most popular independent guides to Canada. The latest version of Trail Canada came out a few days ago and I will be adding to the Vancouver section very regularly.

So far, there are plenty of photos at http://www.trailcanada.com/photos/vancouver.asp but check back regularly for more.

If anyone else I know is in my neck of the woods (i’ve bumped into a few people I know so far) then give me a shout.

Take care and see you on the Trail,

James

Trail Canada
About Trail Canada
Photos of Vancouver
Vancouver guide

After over a week of worries, stress, confusion, many phone calls and letters, it appears Beaker has gone missing.

He was last seen in Fort William, Scotland, heading to Vancouver, Canada.
Beaker was spotted arriving in Toronto on Monday 13 September. After his brief stay he set off for Vancouver but never arrived….

Has anyone seen Beaker?

I have gone through every page of this website and updated everything. So much has changed in the past few months and I haven’t kept details up-to-date.Although my website is fairly generalised and non-specific, I have added a bit more info on most pages and updated the travel section with countries visited in the past few months.

Please feel free to leave me comments on here by clicking the comment link or by visiting my Guest Book.

Keep in touch and see you on the trail….

James

Waking up on my birthday to find the hundreds of emails from victims of the MyDoom virus is not the best way to start the day! See Symantec’s security response to this worm.

My wandering travel friend Pia has finally, and I do mean finally, put together some of her incredible pictures and though provoking travel diary and produced a travel guide to India - Amazing India. If you are interested in travelling to India or want to learn about the varied cultures across one of the most populated countries in the world, Amazing India has it all. Check it out! (Now I want to go!)

Now I have to fight my way through the snow storms and deepening drifts in Glencoe to get to Glasgow! Some of my winter pictures are online here - Scotland Winter Photos.

With what could only be described as an interesting and quite unique experience of a weekend behind me, the Sunday night train from Glasgow to Fort William set off into the dark, cool evening. Around 7.30pm with the snow on the ground increasing in depth as the temperature dropped, the train came to a sudden stop somewhere on Rannoch Moor. As time went by fellow passengers began glancing about anxiously in an attempt to ease their curiosity as to why we had remained stationary on the UK�s most remote railway during a snow storm.

Time ticked by and nothing happened. Then, as suddenly as we stopped, a hurried announcement came across the in-train PA system “unfortunately the train has become derailed and we are going to be stuck here for sometime”.

Not very reassuring! Looks of amusement crept across the faces of the younger passengers sitting by me. As the snow continued to fall and no progress appeared to be being made the sense of amusement was slowly being replaced with worry. Then a loud bang, bang, bang shot through the two car train. In an effort to relieve boredom I went to the front of the train to investigate. Some of the Scotrail crew were attempting to rectify the fault in the frozen points that had caused the accident by applying the skill of large rocks at considerable force to the steel. This only served to frighten the passengers nearer the back of the train.

The snow continued to fall and the level of desperation amongst the members of the crew began to become quite apparent. With a shudder and a pop the lights went out. Complete darkness enveloped the restless passengers. Within seconds the lack of heating became chillingly obvious and the open electric door sucked in the Scottish winter weather.

Fortunately the lights came back on but without the heat leading a couple of hikers to decide they would brave the weather, the terrain and without knowing exactly where we are to head out to find civilisation.

Rising levels of fear, desperation and boredom spread through the train. Efforts to request help by the crew appeared to be fruitless and the free drinks were a welcome to many who were shivering in the refrigerator temperature. Not being a hot drink drinker I was more interested in easing my increasing hunger. Scenes from the movie “Alive” came to mind.

6 hours after the drama had begun the hikers returned. A collection of vehicles were less than 50 metres away. The 100 or so Christmas shoppers squeezed in amongst gifts, shopping, kids and umbrellas. I found myself in the back of a Royal Mail postbus with a mother and screaming child. I didn�t care. The next 3 hours of treacherous, unploughed roads winding through Glencoe finally led me home.

My passion for travel oddly untarnished. Perhaps injected with excitement having survived yet another encounter with the bizarre.

A lot has happened, today, this week, this month, year. Well for a long time now but I think I can safely say today is one of those days which will be a defining moment in time.

Today it begins.

What is “it” ? It is the rest of my life.

I have created a new guest book and included all the messages from the last one.

Feel free to drop me a note in the guest book here:
New Guest Book

You can email me by clicking on the About Me section.

At last! I have created a wide selection of photo galleries. It took some time and the photographs span a good few years but it’s here.

A selection of my photographs

Enjoy…