So its home time............Tom spent the whole day struggling to come to terms with a return home, surreal is the word.We had a long trip to Manchester, one of our longest. It started by saying goodbye to Ben aka "EVEREST". We've had an amazing week in Banff with him and hope he's enjoyed it also, it was fitting for Ben to be the last person we saw on our trip as he was the last person to see us leave University 31 weeks ago (yes, we both got a FIRST)....

As we'd sorted the car last night we were on the road early(ish) in search of Lake Louise, Johnson Canyon and Lake Minnewanka.We took a scenic route north through the park to Lake Louise. As it doesn't go much above zero and drops to the minus 30s we expected the lake to be frozen, and it was, but stunning is the word. We stood freezing to the bones in awe of this great natural beauty. There had been an ice sculpturing competition a few weeks ago, all had an olym...

To save a little money we moved to Ben's hostel for the remaining two nights. The place was a little more rough and ready but by no means one of the worst places we'd stayed.We failed at an attempt to walk up a small mountain but still thought we'd reward ourselves with a visit to the hot springs in the evening.In preparation for a day driving around the national park we tomorrow we picked up a hire car from town and to give Tom a practice run driving on the righ...

With skiing now finished and having left Rachael on her own for two days it was time to see a little more of Banff (although we did managed to sleep in until 11.00). After lunch we did a little shopping on the really nice Banff high street, stopped for a coffee and even managed to buy a couple of things to take home.Ben and Tom hired ice skates and set off in hunt of a patch to use them. We'd been advise of a river we could go on (don't be getting any ideas Lucas...

Rachael decided enough was enough and opted not to ski another day while this gave Tom the opportunity to go on the slopes with Ben for the next couple of days. The morning was spent warming up when Ben finished his work commitments and met after lunch with his Snowboard. We had a great afternoon but were a little restricted by Ben only being a beginner on the Snowboard on the following day Ben hired some skis.The second day was amazing, with stunning weather an...