9th - 11th February - Banff

Headed from Jasper to Banff, making a quick stop at beautiful Lake Louise on the way. We walked across the frozen solid lake and had a good look at some of the amazing ice sculptures. The lake was so thickly frozen that people were ice skating and playing ice hockey on it.

The surroundings were a bit like Narnia - unbelievably pretty and we even saw a few people going for a sleigh ride. No-one offered us any Turkish Delight though - dammit.

We stayed at the Hostel International in Banff which was OK apart from the world's smallest communal kitchen which was filthy and the general mental hospital temperature trying to keep everyone sedated.

Sarah went skiing the next day to the Sunshine Village (which I'm told was good) so I went for a wander around the town centre. Walked around the Bay Lake and bumped into a couple of deer crossing the road and a red squirrel (legend).

Banff town centre was a hell of a lot busier than Jasper which wasn't difficult, though still not quite as big as we expected to be honest.

We decided to go cross country skiing the next day which wasn't a particularly great experience. There were no decent views and we both found it a bit difficult to get the co-ordination going - i also managed to fall over and break my skis after booting them about a bit which didn't help. Another Winter sport crossed off the list I won't be doing again.

Went out for dinner for the first time since about Christmas and had the biggest pizzas in history which neither of us could finish.

13-15th February - Back to Vancouver

Got a bit of a wake up call the next day from Old Man Winter as most of the roads were closed for our planned journey to Nelson. Apparently the authorities couldn't get helicopters out to go and bomb the mountains to clear any road avalanches so we had to stay the night in Lake Louise instead.

Can think of worse places in the world to get stuck though so we headed out for a hike through the Narnia forests with snow covering absolutely everywhere.

Stayed in Kamloops again the next night which was a bit less snowy than before and saw 'The King's Speech' which was absolutely quality - good work FFFFFirth.

Stayed back with our original hosts in Vancouver on our last night after tearfully dropping off the SUV and heated seats. They told us a few horror stories about US immigration (including one involving a glass toilet) and basically told us how crap Seattle is - cheers for that.

To be fair they were massively outdoor types so clearly cities aren't their thing.