Blogs from Banff, Alberta, Canada, North America

What an amazing place to ski!! Banff is the perfect town to stay in with massive ski mountains all around. We have a ski pass for Mt Norquay, Lake Louise and Sunshine Village. On the first day (I think I mentioned) we went to Norquay, which was nice but there were only about four runs open and Adam was just starting to learn. So on day 2 we went to Sunshine Village, which we ended up going to quite a lot. It’s perfect. There’s a gondola that takes you up the mountains to the chair lifts, and you can get off halfway and ski at the halfway point or you can keep going up the very top to the village, and get the lifts up to the clouds. Unfortunately on our first day in Sunshine we ... read more

Had a pretty slow day today. We woke up super early (about 5am) to pack up and leave our cute Vancouver bnb to head to Calgary! It was a pretty cold morning, but it is very hard work pushing a suitcase through piles of snow, so we worked up quite a sweat. Made our train two seconds before the doors closed (that would have been a DISASTER) and we arrived at the airport super early/on time depending on who you are. We sent off our luggage and then headed to Subway for breakfast- once again we needed some vegetables. So far, so great. Everything is going smoothly. Until we get to security. There weren’t that many people at vancouver airport at 6:30am, so I wasn’t surprised when Adam was pulled over for a security check before ... read more

Another relaxing sleep-in this morning followed by a hearty breakfast. We better start riding again soon otherwise we'll be carrying a lot more weight up the Rockies than we planned! Our main adventure today was the Banff Gondola. It was only 7kms from where we're staying so we took the bikes - down the steep hill through town and then up a much longer but less steep hill the other side to get to the Gondola. The Banff Gondola is around 1500m above sea level at it's base and climbs to 2250m at the top - almost Kosciusko height. The ride takes about 10 minutes in little Gondolas that seat four passengers. The views as you climb are breath taking, but not as good as when you get to the top. Looking out over Banff there ... read more

With only 76kms to ride today we could afford a slightly later start. We made good use of the breafast bar and headed off about 9:15am. Heading off from the Great Divide Lodge we were travelling east. The road was wet as it had rained most of the night. The sun was reflecting off the road creating a bit of glare but we were being escorted by mountains on our left and the river on our right and it was all down hill. What a way to start the day. We arrived at Lake Louise Village 15kms later. It was busier than Bourke Street. People, cars, buses, traffic wardens - it was chaotic. We locked up our bikes and decided to take the free shuttle bus the 7kms (up hill) to the Lake. After waiting 20 ... read more

The alarm goes off at 3am, which feels like a couple of hours before we went to bed. Our mood isn’t helped by the knowledge that we have a long and tortuous day of travelling halfway across the world in front of us. Our hotel’s not all that big, but apparently big enough to have someone sitting on the reception desk at 3.30am. She doesn’t speak much English, but she treats us like royalty. She fills a large plastic container with breakfast goodies, then hugs and kisses us both on both cheeks, and looks like she’s about to burst into tears as we disappear off into the night. We feel like we’re leaving a long lost friend, and we’ve only known her for about ten minutes. We drive across to the other end of the island ... read more