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Published: February 16th 2010
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As usual I'm well over a month behind. Back home now, with a bit of time to catch up...
After saying goodbye to Conor I flew to Canada for a month there. I landed in Calgary to be welcomed by -30 degree conditions - slightly chilly! Especially when I had to wait outside the airport for a bus into the city that never came. (Unfortunately I hadn't planned my trip very well and ended up having to get an 18 hour bus to Vancouver to meet Danni, rather than heading straight to Banff which is only two hours away.) Due to the bus never arriving and a train that broke down I missed my Greyhound bus to Vancouver and had to wait five hours for the next one. Bummer! But it did allow me to meet the friendly locals who assisted me on the trip out to the Greyhound bus station, one of who both paid for my ticket and went out of his way to show me how to get there. I realised he probably wasn't the best person to be seeking help from when he started telling me how he's banned from the US and several other countries
due to various drug-related convictions. Oh well, eventually made it to Vancouver, albeit a little worse for wear. Highlights of Vancouver include:
- Wandering around Granville St. and the surrounding area and trying on some great outfits (see pictures) at the op-shops.
- Visiting Stanley Park, a massive park in Vancouver with lots of beautiful lakes.
- Going to the ice hockey to watch Vancouver Canucks play Anaheim Ducks. Unfortunately the fight-to-goal ratio wasn't what we'd hoped for (only two fights compared to five goals), but it was a good night out.
- Being stopped on the street by an 84-year-old (we knew that because she was very keen to let us know that it was her birthday the next day), who told us we were very beautiful girls. She also said we were the future of the world, which was downgraded to the future of Australia when she found out where we were from.
Next stop was a couple of days in Whistler. We did some nice walks there out to the Lost Lake and around Whistler Creek, as well as checking out some of the skiing action. From Whistler we got another long bus to Banff
Gloves off...
Highlight of the game to meet Cate, Vince, Beck, Pip and Co., who are living there. Banff highlights:
- Walks around Banff. Fortunately the bears were all hibernating so we could go walking without too much panic. Danni and I did see a wolf though on one of our outings. We were also fortunate to have Vanilla Ice acting much like a compass for us, so we never got lost - One of the mountains overlooking the centre of town has a rock formation which looks suspiciously like Vanilla Ice's face, so we knew as long as we could see him we were OK.
- Great views over Banff by getting the gondola up Sulphur Mountain and walking up Tunnel Mountain.
- 'T-time:' Dart (and possibly a drink or two) sessions at Tommy's Bar. I have discovered darts is a talent I am NOT blessed with. Apparently throwing the dart like one would a baseball is not ideal. The dart games got quite animated on occasions and various nicknames were handed out. One of mine was much nicer than most: B-Rose (as in Brigid Rose, as in Brose, as in Broes before Hoes).
- Snowboarding up Sunshine Mountain. Much fun! Snowboarding, however, also
provided a few lowlights. Goat (aka Danni's fiancee) breaking his wrist in three places and having to go back to Australia for surgery; Clinchy falling and being taken to hospital after injuring himself somewhere in the vicinity of his spleen (earning him the nickname of Spleeny for the rest of the trip); another friend was sitting off to the side of a run, nowhere near any tracks, when a guy burst through the trees and smacked her in the back of the head with his board at high speed - luckily she was wearing a helmet!!
- Post-snowboarding recovery sessions at the Banff hot springs where your body is in 37 degree heat but your head's experiencing -20 degree cold and your hair has completely frozen.
- Day trips to the amazing Johnston Canyon and Lake Louise.
- Christmas day shenanigans involving a game of cricket (using a wooden fence pale until it snapped, twice), frisbee, ice-hockey fussball, a DJ-off and some excellent dancing, Twister (the Twister mat doubled as our table cloth), a feast, finished off with Home Alone. As well as some very amusing Christmas presents sent over by Joey which included 'Ho, Ho, Ho' necklaces and Christmas
wishes from all my favourite people. Top day!
- New Year's Eve fireworks out on the streets of Banff and the celebrations that followed.
- An action packed birthday. Beginning with a few hours of dogsledding led by a great pack of dogs including the very exciteable 'Toggles' and (possibly slightly 'special') 'Juliet.' It was a fantastic day out and something that I highly recommend, despite Beck's incident - When you're going uphill the driver (or drivers in this case as Beck and I were tandem driving), is supposed to jump off the sled and run alongside it in order to help the dogs out. Beck and I did so at one stage, but Beck's shoes were slightly large and slippery and she fell flat on her face. She didn't, however, forget the number one rule of dogsledding, which is never to let go of the sled, which caused her to be dragged along for about 50 metres before I eventually woke up and realised I could jump on the brakes. Sorry Beck! Birthday celebrations continued with Mexican lunch and cocktails, followed by an afternoon session at Tommy's. It was concluded with a seafood buffet for dinner and drinks out
(probably a few more than necessary thanks to a certain singlet!).
I finished off the Canada trip with a couple of days in Calgary - walking around town, round the Bow River and to Prince's Island Park - before flying back to London to hang out with Danni for a few more days.
Big thanks to Cate, Beck, Vince and Pip for putting up with us!!
And to Beck because I stole her dogsledding photos.
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Katherine Howell
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Fat head!
Not the fattest though, Board Junior.