Vancouver, and Australian summer!

Well we made it into Vancouver, and then quite a bit further a few days later – all the way back to Australia, in fact! Vancouver when we got there was snow-less, as expected, but we got a lovely surprise when we woke up one morning and there was a decently thick coating of snow all over the ground! This was of course the morning we were going to transfer the registration of our van over to its new owner, involving driving down the hilly roads which were yet to see a snow plow, with lots of drivers around who weren’t used to the snow. Lucky we were J

Pretty snow in Vancouver!

Everything outlined in white

Last time brushing snow off the van, before we sold it...

Snow on the streets in Burnaby, Vancouver

So that evening we joined a lot of happy little families and went to the park down the road from Ben and Anna’s place where we were staying (while they were away on holidays – thanks again guys!!), and threw some fresh wet snowballs at each other, and made a big happy snowman J Although we’d seen so much snow over the last couple of months, we sure weren’t sick of it yet!! The snow in Vancouver was totally different to the snow in Alberta, in that it was very wet and packed well (great for snowballs!), rather than dry and ultra powdery. Also different in that people are actually excited by a tiny bit of snow, rather than seeing it as the start of a very long cold winter! Much more like snow in the Southern Hemisphere really, I guess…

Squirrel on a bin in Central Park, Burnaby...

Excited Vancouverites playing in the snow - so we joined them :)

Rolling up snow to make a snowman in the park!

Lawrie with our very happy snowman :)

We didn’t do a whole lot in Vancouver, other than sleeping, a whole lot of relaxing, and playing in the snow, then we had a very loooong but thankfully uneventful flight back to Sydney, via Texas (we just saw the inside of part of the airport) and Brisbane (SO hot, even at 6am!).

Christmas lights in the snow

Back home we caught up with Lawrie’s Mum and Dad and sister Kate in Emu Plains, then headed south with a car full of more of our stuff (moving back in is a long slow process!), back to our little home in Wollongong! It all felt disturbingly normal, going back to the same furniture in the same house, on the same street… We did go to Canada, right??!

Since then we’ve enjoyed lots of things about being back home – being with our families, convention, a little bit of proper Aussie summer!! (hot sunny weather, beautiful white sandy beaches with lovely temperature water and nice waves, roasting in the sun, and delicious summer fruits like MANGOES, nectarines, grapes, and watermelon!). We dearly miss bits about the Canadian winter we were having, but it is sure nice to be in summer again!! J

Ahh, summer! Back at the beach in Wollongong

With family before Christmas - Justin & Megan

Jo & Glen with Trixie & Dexter

Lawrie & I

3 out of 4 sisters - Nicole, Joanne, Megan. & Trixie :)

Lawrie on a slack line at the beach :)

Lawrie on his surfboard in the morning sun - photo courtesy of Glen

Well… that’s all folks! Summer and its loveliness will continue, but our trip is over… We dearly hope to be going back again one day, and see all our wonderful friends there again, but in the meantime… Bye!

Didsbury to Vancouver – mid December

Well, things are coming to an end here for us in Canada… L Although it really will be nice to see family and friends back home again! And to have some summer too! Before we left we tried to get in a little more skating and hockey, as well as skiing/snowboarding, as there’s not a whole lot of that at home! We saw still more snow around, and had a farewell from all the friends around the weekend before we left, which was really nice! It was so great to see everyone there together, and realise just how many great people we’d got to know and be friends with! (and have to say goodbye to!) We were presented with a ‘Canada’ Dairy Queen ice cream cake, and rather than Happy Birthday or anything similar, everyone sang the ‘Oh Canada’, the national anthem!

Surprise ice cream cake!

I spent most of a day with Rebecca and her two adorable rascals, Bentley and Bella, a couple of days before we left that week, and we just generally relaxed and slept in, as well as getting our things together (it’s amazing and kind of scary how much you can accumulate in a few months!). We finally went to see an NHL hockey game, where the Calgary Flames versed the Carolina Hurricanes, with Jane and Adriana who was visiting from New Zealand, and it was a fantastic game to watch! The score was tied much of the way through the game, until Calgary scored the winning goal with 3 seconds of overtime to go – otherwise it would have gone to a shoot-out! We definitely watched some amazing hockey and incredible skating! And certainly didn’t have any problems seeing what was going on from our ‘best’ (ie. Cheapest) seats in the house! Afterwards, we had fun diving headfirst down the hill outside the stadium in the snow (not odd or anything…) before driving back to the girls’ flat in Calgary, slightly less rushed than on the way to the game!

Bella dressed for playing outside

Bentley

1 of 5 deer just behind the house

Adriana, Jane & Nicole watching the Flames in Calgary

Flames players coming onto the ice

Brodie!! Young player for the Flames - Lawrie was very excited! :)

Sliding down on the snow outside the stadium... Nicole, Adriana, Jane

Us outside

Proudly supporting Brodie! :)

We managed to finish packing all our ridiculously large bags for the plane, and get them to weigh amounts that weren’t too far off the allowed limits, so not too much switching around will be needed just before we fly out of Vancouver! And then we shifted it all into the car before leaving early in the morning for a day in the snow at Lake Louise with Robert and Wanda, determined not to say goodbye to them just yet! We managed to catch up with Brodie (from New Zealand, who we’d previously seen in Edmonton and of course back in New Zealand) and Lorinda, who was there on a single sit down ski and was amazing to watch! She sure put me to shame skiing! We had a fantastic day there, and even though it was a Saturday and there were heaps more people there than any other snowfield we’d been to in Canada, it wasn’t crowded by any means! Even slightly…

Brodie Helms coming down to a stop on the ski slope

Lorinda

Robert

Lorinda, Brodie

Robert & Wanda

Wanda, Lorinda, Brodie, Nicole - stopping for lunch

We had a delicious supper at Boston Pizza in Canmore before finally having to say goodbye to Robert and Wanda – our Canadian family! We’d been putting it off for a while now, but it didn’t make it any less hard! We’ll sure miss them!!

We spent the night in Canmore before heading to a meeting in Exshaw the next day, and then to Johnson’s Canyon, also in the Rockies, where we walked a couple of km to some frozen waterfalls! These were super impressive to see, and it was hard to believe that they really do freeze, and stay frozen even though the air temperature was above 5ºC! You could hear and see the water running below the ice, but there was sure still plenty of frozen waterfall!

Looking up the ice and snow covered creek at Johnson's Canyon

One of many bits of frozen waterfall

Ice climbing - this actually looked a lot more grippy
than just walking the path to the falls!

Us at the frozen waterfall at the end

From Johnson’s Canyon we headed down to Invermere, near Fairmont where we previously spent a long weekend, and we met up with some young ones from Pincher Creek and surrounds – Boyd & Brit and the girls, fresh from a holiday in Hawaii, Jane and Adriana, and Darryl and Erica! We stayed together in an awesome little apartment right next to the ski field in the Panorama Mountain Village – pretty exciting being able to see the lifts and snow groomers working right outside! So the next day we headed the short distance to the snowfield, and had another fantastic day on the slopes! There wasn’t a massive amount of runs actually open, but there were no crowds and no line ups, and a bunch of friends to have a great time with! J

Looking out the window over the hot pools and ski runs :)

Adriana looking pro, at her second try snowboarding!

Lawrie

Erica, Darryl, Adriana, Nicole

Nicole & Jane

Nicole, Jane, Erica

Darryl & Erica

Adriana

Nicole

After saying some more sad goodbyes to our good friends that it's hard to believe we hadn't even met a few months ago, we planned to drive a couple of hours to Golden that night, to be a little further on our way, but on account of spending a little too long in the hot pools of the motel/lodge we stayed at, we didn’t get on our way until a little late, and the very thick fog was a bit much, so we drove all of 15 minutes before finding a motel room for the night… And our plans to ski a half day at the massive snow field at Revelstoke, a couple of hours on from Golden, were again foiled when we got to Golden and discovered that the road (the main highway in all of Canada) was closed in both directions between Golden and Revelstoke, and therefore we wouldn’t be getting there until late afternoon at least! So we slept in the back of the van in the Tim Horton’s carpark instead…

We got to Kamloops that night, and from there we thought it would be the end of the snow for our trip. However… we were very much mistaken! We had some of the heaviest snow fall we’d had the whole time over here, while driving on the mountain passes towards Vancouver! We would have pulled over and waited until it stopped, but then the snow on the road would be thicker and even worse to drive in, so we plowed on cautiously, taking note of a few cars in ditches, trucks stopped jack-knifed in the other direction, and the many signs warning of the weather conditions…

Sunset driving into Kamloops, BC

Scraping the ice off the car yet again!

The one 'lane' everyone seemed to drive in on the 3 lane highway

... You think? :)

It was almost welcome to be out of the snow when we got near Vancouver, although it was very strange to be driving without snow covering the side of the road! Something we’ll definitely have to get used to again! Although surely much easier than the other way around!

We managed to drop off all our bags at Ben and Anna’s in Vancouver before finding a car wash and convincing a guy who was interested to purchase our van, so that was a great way to finish the day and the trip back to the coast! J