we were leaving banff at around lunch time but we got a message from our bus company that they would be late as there had been an accident and part of the highway shut, so that wasn't very reasurring. anyway we got on our little bus thing and the guy was very chatty, picked up from the hostel which was good then made another pick up and set off for lake louise. on the way we were looking out for bears and mooses but didnt see any, all the roads were snowy which we were getting used to but was still scary. the driver informed us that the hostel was really far out of town and in the middle of no where which we thort was rubbish. anyway arrived in lake louise where we were picking up more people, so we ran through the hotel there and took a picture of the lake and ran back, just to say we'd seen it. it was all frozen and people were ice skating. the driver told us all about the history of the lake and how it got its name thanks to queen victoria. we left lake louise then set off on the ice fields parkway which is a long road that connects banff and jasper through all the mountains. if you've ever been to glenn coe the parkway is similar but it takes 5 hours to get through and is about 3 times as big. it was stunning!! mountains were really pretty. however the driver decided he was feeling christmasy and put on some christmas tunes where the fat english man sitting behind us decided to whistle along to which made the journey great!!! it got dark and the mountains disappeared we wound up a mountain road and found our hostel half way up. thinking this was really rubbish we were met by one of the hostels dogs. checked in and decided upon a private room as we didnt fancy sharing with about 40 others in one big dorm. we didnt have any food with us so we had to scrounge off the free food shelf in the kitchen and found some noodles and pasta yum! thinking that this was a realy bad hostel we planned to look for a hotel the next day. so we went to bed a bit unhappy.

woke up sweating as they have the heating on really high. we got up and bought some porridge from the hostel for breakfast then set off on a long walk in to town. walking down the road we found lots of animal prints in the snow so we tried to figure out what they were with ben acting out how they would move to help. walking down we couldnt believe how quiet it was and deserted, we finaly reached the bottom of the road and still had 3k to the town. but we found a nice frozen river which we followed for a bit then arrieved in town. by now it was lunch time so had an a&w which is a burger place which comes pretty close to uncle sams. had a walk around and stocked up on food supplies for 3 days and set off in the cold back on our 7k walk to the hostel. took a long time and finally got back knackered and hungry so one of us cooked and the other made fire, think you can guess which way round. spent the night reading and playing cards by the fire which as nice.

today it was time for skiing, after attempting skiing twice in spain and scotland we were thinking third time lucky! had to get a taxi to town as it was early then we caught a shuttle up to the ski resort, it was really cold already and we didnt have ski jackets or sallopettes so we were wearing all our warm clothes. we arrived and got set up with skis and poles and lift passes and now it was time to put ben on skis for the first real time, skiing in southampton doesnt really count. got to the nursery slope and down ben went managing to fall over before he hit the road which was next to the slope which was a bit silly. back up the magic carpet he tried again and again trying to stop and managing at last. then it was time to try turning, once the principle of it was explained ben tried it but couldnt really work it out. so we decided to go up the chair lift and by the time we got back down ben would be able to ski, hopefully! so we got on and rode to the top and got off with out falling over and tried to go down the slope but ben got stuck and couldnt turn and nicky tried to tell ben how to do but he didnt listen, luckily a nice man from surrey was there to help us out on his day off from being a ski instructor. so with some encouragement we got to the bottom and were left to our own devices. it was good meeting the nice man as we got a free lesson and ben could now ski sort of. it was so cold we had to warm up inside and learned that it was -23. the day progressed with doing more runs and having lots of fun until ben decided to use nicky as a stopping barrier and grab on to her and took her out with him. so a bit bruised we carried on and decided to attempt a drag lift. did a couple of successful runs together up and down then it got a bit icy and ben lost his ski in a ditch whilst on the drag lift so we both tumbled down but each with one leg still hooked onto the t-bar so tangled we got dragged up on our backs which was quite amusing. so the day carried on with more skiing but it got to cold so we got the bus back and had another evening of sitting by the fire and reading.

woke up quite late today as we ached from skiing. the big mountain we were on was our mission today to see how far we could get up it before we needed crampons. so we set off on a path from the hostel and a couple of minutes of walking through some trees and big wolf thing shot past nicky so she screamed which made ben turn round thinking something is really wrong and the wolf shot past him. then another animal turned up and after realising what they were we giggled as they were the 2 dogs from the hostel, one was a cross beteen a husky and wolf and the other a golden retriever. there were signs in the hostel saying to return the dogs if they followed you but we couldnt get them back and they seemed to know the way so we followed them. up through the snow we slowly climbed the mountain with the occasional visit from one of the dogs ted the retriever to make sure we were still there and safe. got some pretty views of the mountains and then whosh the wolf would be running past you and found ourselves thinking i hope that is the dog. carried on and got as far as the tree line and turned around. got back down and had a big fire that night and burned lots of logs.

time to return to vancouver today, bus was at 12 so that was lots of fun 13 hours back. when we arrived in vancouver we expected it to warmish but we turned up to 10cm of snow and cars facing the wrong way on the highway but this didnt faze our bus driver as he hurtled along overtaking all the cars which was pretty scary. arrived late and went straight to bed.

got up today just in time for breakfast and bumped in to an old friend we made in toronto which was weird. our flight to hawaii wasnt till 6 so we had to hang around the hostel till it was time to go. set out for the airport packed on a bus and arrived to find the most complicated system ever for entering america. had to fill out lots of paperwork first then they check you in but you keep your luggage with you, then you go through customs where you fill more stuff out and have fingerprints and pictures taken. then you hand in the paperwork to someone else. then you can get rid of your luggage then go through xrays. took ages. finally through all the flights were delayed and some cancelled due to the weather. luckily ours wasnt which was bout the only one. time came to board the plane and before we took off we had to go check to see if we had ice on the wings and had a little shower to get rid of it. only had bout 30 people on the flight and turned out to be the best flight ever. flew with a fijian company so they were really laid back and wore hawaiian shirts as their uniform. got served drinks and dinner and they came round with wine, which of course we had, then they came round again with more wine, it would be rude to decline. when we had finished that they asked us if we wanted more which was very nice of them. so turned out to be a great flight as we were drunk and giggly. arrived in hawaii to a very nice 23 which was a bit of a change to -23.