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Last day in Calgary

So today we woke at a reasonable hour (10ish) had a shower and headed north towards the Rockies!!

Trent and Morgan had pre organised an “easy” hike for us to get a taste tester of the hiking season they enjoy during the summer here in Calgary. It was about an hour drive up to the foot of the Rockies and by following our maps Trent had taken us right to the bottom of one of the many mountains. We set off on this hike and it immediately became apparent that we’d been lied to and this wasn’t an “easy” rated hike. About 45min up this mountain I built up the courage to ask the real rating and Trent blessed us with an honest answer of “well it’s rated hard on the hiking map”. I don’t know about anyone else but for mine and Katy’s second hike ever, a hard rating is probably much harder than necessary.

The beginning had a few steep bits and some nice trails where conversation was flowing. Fast forward another 30min and conversation was completely halted by the absolute gradient of this slope. I’m no engineer but I’m guessing the gradient of this slope had to have been at least 50/60 degrees. It was excessively steep and an absolute workout on the calves,quadriceps and hamstrings. At this point the only thing keeping us going was the occasional dog going down that wanted pats. We would stop every dog possible, giving us the happiness required to continue and not throw Trent off the side for luring us into an easy hike that’s actually classed as difficult.

Bear spray firmly in hand, we confidently proceeded up this mountain with haste. Morgan assured us that the bears and deadly cougars know there’s lots of humans on this route so they tend to avoid it if possible. The “if possible” made me a little uneasy but we continued nonetheless. Eventually we made it to the top of this beast and were graced with a breathtaking view. It was a lot colder on the top and the clouds were obviously rolling in. We stopped for a few quick photos and a bite to eat of the sandwiches Trent had premade for us as a picnic on the summit.

After a few quick photos and munching down our picnic it started to snow! Yes, you heard me it started to snow. At my best guess it was probably about 5 degrees up the top which is strange considering 2 hours ago we were on the ground worried about sunburn. We decided we didn’t want to hang around too long while the snow picked up so we quickly started our descent of Prairie Mountain.

The descent, although very tough on the quads, took considerably less time. It involved quite a bit of skill to trek down a very steep mountain without rolling an ankle and we all managed to achieve the base without a hiccup. All in all it took about 3 hours, probably 2 hours up and 1 hour down.

Katy and I were stoked to have conquered our second mountain (after Ben Nevis; Scotland’s highest mountain. See https://bennevis.co.uk/ for more info on that great peak) and no matter how much we complain we will always enjoy the experience and reflect on how beautiful and peaceful the hike was. We drove back to Calgary and quickly had a shower and prepared for our last night in Calgary.

After a short intermission at home we headed to one of Toms friends house. Conner Christmas! The same dude that joined us for the Ocean Alley gig yesterday. He had invited us all to his place for an open fire pit bbq with burger buns and salad etc so of course we accepted. We absolutely destroyed a few burgers and a couple beers before heading off to see a part of the city called Ingleston. It’s on the other side of town from where Trent etc lived but seemed like quite a happening place.

We went to a dog friendly bar in Ingleston after Conner’s Bbq, which was obviously going to bode well with Katy and myself as we are both dog lovers. We had one quick beer here and it was time to go and see Conner’s comedy show. He was part of this new act that was started tonight called “ugly duckling comedy” in Ingleston. It’s basically a bunch of comedians getting some time to tell their jokes and start something brilliant. Honestly this show was funny! I like to think of myself as a comedy connoisseur and Katy and I went to improv comedy in Copenhagen a while back that was genuinely not funny. These few comedians were all funny. I had an absolute ball and laughed till my abdominal muscles were sorer than the legs that climbed me a mountain earlier. Conner’s set was hilarious and obviously so was the headliner. Many lols were had.

A link to his Instagram if you’re interested.

My particular fav of the stand up was when Conner talks about his name and how his full name is Conner Nicholas Christmas, his dads name is David Murray Christmas (Merry Christmas) and his mum is Dayna Christmas (Day Christmas). I later found out that that’s no word of a lie and his family are all genuinely named after the festive period 😂.

We went back to Kensington pub, which is the pub Morgan’s mum owns and the pub where we know everybody. We had a few drinks and said our final goodbyes as everyone knew we are heading off east on our flight tomorrow.

Everybody has been so lovely and they we’re so happy to have met us. We had such a great time in this place and our friends here have such a close knit family it’s been nice to be a part of. They’ve definitely looked after us as one of their own, can’t thank them enough. Calgary has been a great city and I honestly couldn’t think of a single fault other than downtown wasn’t as busy as your usual city, it was weirdly quiet. I think probably getting the locals tour for the week has been the best way to see everything so we have our friends to thank for that.

Off toToronto tomorrow where we pick up our car (and Kirsten) and drive through to Ottawa, Ontario which is 4 hours drive.

Check back soon

M 🙂

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Days 9 & 10 (our anniversary)

Hi guys,

So we’re combining two days into one as Tuesday was pretty chill for us. We had a bit of a lie in Tuesday morning since we’ve not had the most restful sleeps. With a house full of early workers and sleeping in the living room, we both tend to hear our roomies (for the week) getting ready and sneaking off to work.

Anyway; we woke up and decided to skip breakfast (it was 11am) and got ready for the day. One of the boys, Kieren, recommended an independent Italian sandwich shop called Peppino’s which is know for its delicious subs. Let me tell ya, he’s not lying. They hit the spot and a bit more! I had chicken pesto and Mitch had chicken parmigiana 🤤 we ate these on a bench in the sun by the river.

In the evening we headed to Lynn and Malcolm’s (Morgan’s mum and stepdad’s place) for dinner. It was a great meal and even better company (cheesy I know) but we really enjoyed spending time with everyone and catching up.

Wednesday; if the title of this post didn’t already give it away; was our anniversary. 4 whole years together and by the end of this trip will have added another 3 months.

We started off with lunch at a bar/restaurant called Hayden Block. It’s specialties are smoked meat and whisky so you know Mitch was in heaven. We each had a main and shared a watermelon salad (weird to imagine but very tasty).

I had a pulled pork sandwich while Mitch had 14 hour smoked brisket which he says is the best meat he’s ever eaten. Topped with their espresso barbecue sauce and we were both very happy with our choices ☺️.

We also picked up a sweet treat (or 4) from a bakery called Crave. Safe to say I’m an oat cookie convert 😍

After lunch we met up with Lynn and Malcolm again to go beer tasting at a brewery.

They’ve changed the laws in Canada recently which meant that microbreweries don’t have to be able to produce massive quantities in their initial batches anymore. Previously this had been a block for those breweries that didn’t have the money to fund such a big startup. So now it’s actually possible for them to get off the ground with their first few small batches which is why Calgary has so many popping up.

We headed to a place called Legend Seven Brewing which supplies some of Lynn’s taps at her pub. Mitch and myself decided to do a beer flight which is lots of little tasters. I would describe the glasses as “Katy sized” and was disappointed that I couldn’t buy any. I guess I’ll have to be on the lookout in Australia for them.

We enjoyed our beers while playing shuffle board (which is basically miniature sized curling but on a sand covered board).

Since Lynn and Malcom seem to know everyone with a brewery we got treated to a private tour of Legend’s brew house which was really cool. They make it start to finish including bottling and labelling. We didn’t even pay for our drink flight because the rep for the company wrote it off on his tab! I think he was trying to persuade Malcolm to add another tap to the bar.

We moved on to another pub that Malcolm recommended then headed back to K Pub for some food to go with all that beer. We had a brilliant afternoon and had to fight to pay for anything. If you’re reading this Lynn & Malcolm; thank you for your generosity.

Finally to end this amazing day (best anniversary yet) we watched the raptors beat golden state (woop woop) and went to The Gateway at Calgary Tech to see Ocean Alley. They’re an Aussie band who got #1 in triple J’s hot 100. The gig was so much fun, the band were fab and we were surrounded by the entire Australian population of Calgary (or so we assume). The new boy on this picture is Conner (Thomas and Trents Canadian friend). He does comedy part time and loves Aussie music! I’m introducing him here because he’ll be appearing in the next blog post 😉.

Heres Ocean Alley for those above the age of 28

Not a haircut between them! – Katy xxx

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Walking tour of downtown Calgary

Today was Monday which meant that all our friends had to be shipped off to their employment with sullen faces and a slouch in their step. Thankfully, Katy and I are officially unemployed which meant we got to go and explore the city as we hadn’t seen downtown yet in all its glory with sunshine and greenery.

We took advantage of a much needed sleep in, had some breakfast and planned on our maps where we needed to walk to see everything. We knew it was a long way but didn’t mind because we like walking, it’s the best way to see a new city plus it’s good exercise and means we can taste all the good foods without feeling guilty. We later leaned that by the end of the day our trusty Nike trainers had taken us approx 16km!!

We started off down towards the river and followed that towards downtown whose direction was obvious thanks to the skyline in the distance. The water in the river was beautiful and the weather bought out all the joggers, cyclists, ducks, geese and tourists.

With twin pineapples (Katy) beside me we walked all the way into the city and around to a neighbourhood called “Eau Claire” which Keiran had previously told us was great to visit for parks and various sunny sitting/eating spots. We passed the “peace bridge” which was an attraction and sat by the river in the sun, dog watching and enjoying the vitamin D being soaked into our pores.

From what we could see the council were working on things for the upcoming summer. The winter snow has only just finished melting so we walked passed many places planting colourful flowers or garden beds and even 2 separate places cleaning an empty public pool and refilling it again.

Downtown Calgary is quite a city; filled with towering skyscrapers and many a businessmen hustling passed you fuelled by their 6th coffee for the day. Having said that, from our view it wasn’t a busy city, at least not at lunchtime on a Monday. It’s very clean and as always with the Canadians; everybody is very polite and friendly. We may have spoiled ourselves a little by starting with Vancouver because we kept finding ourselves saying we preferred Van over Calgary. That’s not to say we don’t like Calgary there just seemed to be a lot more happening in Vancouver.

We walked quite literally, everywhere. Saw where the Calgary Stampede is famously held every July and both its main shopping and restaurant districts. We stopped in the food court of a shopping center for food. The shopping center has a complete glass roof and made it very open and inviting.

On the top floor they had gardens you could sit with once you bought your lunch. Katy and I decided we needed a healthy green lunch so we picked up the most delicious salad from an independent food chain called “culture”. 100% healthy fast food, it was delicious! We sat by the garden/carp pond and enjoyed our lunch as we watched those same bustling business people rush to get their lunch in before they had to hurry back to work.

To fill in the rest of our day we ventured through the city and took photos of all the quirks we saw along the way. I can tell this city loves summer just by the way they’re setting up in preparation for the sunshine. I wonder if they love their -30C winters just as much?

By 6pm we had seen everything we wanted to and thought it too early to eat dinner. So we went and got some food from Safeway and walked back to the house. All our mates were home from work and happily enjoying their dinner so we joined them around the kitchen bench. After dinner we played a drawing game on our phones that was all linked up to the tv which was an absolute laugh and went to bed. Hopefully this sunshine continues into our week here.

I absolutely love unemployment!!

-Mitchel T

Until next time

M 🙂

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Day 7 – Calgary and Basketball

So we’ve been away for a week already! Time flies when you’re unemployed and having the time of your life; but at the same time it feels like we’ve been away for ages. Probably because we’ve seen so much and been in 3 different cities already.

Sunday morning we woke up in beautiful Banff, honestly the views of this place are out-of-this-world! Everywhere we went you could see another snow covered peak of another mountain which is surprising since the weather was a toasty 24. When I packed I was expecting Scotland weather: bit of sun, some rain and mostly just ok weather but we’ve had some really hot days already. Me being me (a cold frog) I’m almost too scared to wear my shorts in case it gets chilly.

Here’s a pic of Mitchy enjoying his fruity cocktail and simultaneously slow roasting himself.

Back to the story – we left Canmore (just outside Banff where our Air BnB was) and drove back to Calgary where we met up with all of our housemates for the week. We had breakfast in the garden and chilled for the afternoon before heading out to watch the basketball.

For those not in the basketball scene, like moi. The Raptors are Canada’s only professional basketball team playing in the NBA. Surprisingly they’re doing very well this year and have made it to the finals which for some reason takes like 7 games to prove your the winner.

We spent the night eating nachos and drinking cocktails (ok that was just me) off of a converted pool table while watching the Raptors play game 2 in which they played well but ultimately got whooped in the last 2 quarters :(.

Here is all of the housemates enjoying our front row TV seats.

Hope you’ve enjoyed this baby update of Calgary. Hopefully we’ll have more to show you this week coming! – Katy xxx

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Calgary & Banff/The Rockies

Hi folks, sorry I missed a day, we were too busy having fun. We bring ourselves to the end of day 6 of our travels and it really does seem like it’s already been a lot longer. Sorry if there’s not many pictures I’ve been terrible with the lens recently.

Yesterday we got to the airport and saw on the news that there was raging bushfires in the Rockies and the smoke from those fires had blown across to Calgary. So our friendly aeroplane ride was turbulent as we came into land. I personally think the pilot did well to get us down onto the ground as visibility looked to be about 10m no joke!

Trents girlfriend Morgan and her mum were nice enough to pick us up from the airport. We acquainted ourselves and were shown through the house after a small drive through smokey Calgary. We waited until Trent had finished work and then headed out to the pub that Morgan’s mum owned. It was a lovely, wood finished large pub with a lot of character and personality! It was also right in the middle of a “happening” part of town which made it a great spot to be. After we had had diner and a few drinks we were informed that Morgan’s mum had picked up the entire bill which was so lovely of her. We spent the night visiting various bars where our friends either worked or were regulars. When we got home post midnight there was a loud chap on the door. It was their 69 year old widowed next door neighbour. She says that she has her fire pit going and would be offended if we didn’t join her for a drink by the fire- so we obliged.

After a late night and a much needed sleep in, we jumped into the car and headed for the Rockies. We had an air BnB booked in Canmore which is the next town down from Banff.

We drove to Lake Minniewanka which is just outside of Banff and stopped for a photo shoot. All the while hoping to see some of the wildlife such as a bear or mountain lion( from a distance).

Morgan told us that by the time you see a Mountain lion or a Grizzly bear the best you can hope for is a quick death-if you can see them it’s because they want you too and they’ve seen you long before. (Side fact- there’s also never in the history of hiking been a bear attack on a group of 4 or more people so.. yknow, the odds were in our favour. Similar to getting eaten by a shark or killed by a redback spider in Australia. It’s rare!). We did manage to see a few chipmunks and rabbits which were cool and much less terrifying, the lake was absolutely amazing and the colour of the water was a strange blue. Photos definitely do not do it justice.

Afterwards we drove to Banff to have a look around and eat some lunch and sit in one of the various beer gardens to have a beer. The views in Banff are spectacular. Everywhere you look the backdrop is the Rocky Mountains. It almost looked fake because they were so close and so ginormous and belittling. We met up with Tommo (yes the same Tom from Vancouver) as he had driven back across from his holiday with his parents.

Our time in Banff had come to an end. I think it’s wonderful and kinda reminded me of Queenstown in NZ. It had this lively alpine atmosphere where everyone is so happy and friendly. The weather was also stunning 24 and sunny so I manage to work on my tan sitting on the patio too. We drove back to Canmore and checked into our BnB, which was comedically difficult as if they’ve made it a riddle.

Enter the elevator and insert the key. Pull it up and turn to the left 1/4 turn. Floor 3, exit the elevator and turn towards wild rose room

-Direct quote from air BnB mans manual. It was extensive and ridiculous believe me.

Our Air BnB has a hot tub so we decided to soak up what was left of the daylight in a very very hot spa. It was lovely at first but we didn’t last long because we were absolutely roasting. Not to mention we were hungry and ready to walk down the road for dinner.

Tonight didn’t consist of too much, the 4 of us walked around town which is only 1 street. We had a delicious dinner and had 1 or two drinks then headed home as the unanimous decision was that we were all exhausted.

Not sure what tomorrow morning will entail, it’s looking like we aren’t going to get up to Lake Louise which is disappointing but you can’t do it all and and we’re pretty strapped for time, it’s another hours drive away from Calgary to get there. We were thinking of doing a short hike around here because they’re all meant to be amazing but we might be pushed for time as we have a dinner reservation in a sports bar with about 20 people as the Toronto Raptors are playing in the basketball finals. So we need to be back in Calgary for 4pm.

Love to all.

Check back in soon for the next installment

M 🤘🏼

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North Vancouver

The first point I’d like to note is that over our 4/5 days in Vancouver, according to our health app on our phone we have done over 50km of walking. Next stop- Olympics

Yesterday we decided to head north over the river to North Vancouver where the mountain ranges start. Kind of resembled Dandenong in Melbourne but more… Americanised with the towering pine trees, countless pickup trucks and cars driving the wrong way down the road 🙃 We caught a ferry across the river and then a bus all the way out to Lynn Canyon Valley. There was two options; Capilano suspension bridge which cost ~$18pp or Lynn Valley suspension bridge which was free. We had heard from multiple locals that the Lynn Valley one was better anyway so we decided to go for the free one. So we checked we knew our bear safety facts and headed into the woods.

My fav photo of the day taken with the 10 year old GoPro. Yes mum, it was high and Yes mum, it was wobbly.

We walked through the national park which was full of beautiful thick forestry. It sort of had an easy path to follow with occasional wooden steps as an aid.

We stopped at “30 foot pool” which was a crystal clear natural lake at the bottom of a mini waterfall. Water was too cold, we didn’t even consider dipping our toes in.

We saw a lady walking her Hungarian Vizsla puppy (which was striking) and bundled her up for a few questions (and pats). She was lovely and answered the many questions I had about training and energy and separation anxiety etc. End result was I now want a Vizsla even more!!

We trekked through the winding paths filled with tree roots and potholes and thought we were doing well to not roll an ankle before we saw a man with his 3 year old in this purpose built child carrying hiking backpack-we were impressed.

Eventually we made it to the suspension bridge. Katy confidently strode onto the bridge while I gathered the courage to follow. We did all the necessary pictures and it was a sight to behold once I got over the whole looking down thing.

We followed the “bear trail” home which sounds ominous. Contrary to the name there are no bears on the bear trail- luckily. There were also no beavers on the beaver trail so I’m guessing they’re not named for those reasons 😂

North Vancouver presented us with some markets with different shops and food stalls. We roamed around and all the food looked delicious but being the smart woman she is Katy had packed us a bagel lunch in the backpack. So we saved ourselves money by eating the packed lunch although that couldn’t stop us from sampling the finest blueberry nutty dark chocolate. Yummm

We boarded our ferry back to our side of town and set home (via the shops) for a midday kip as we were exhausted and had planned to meet my friend later in the afternoon.

Tommo had been fighting traffic and got into his BnB later than expected but it didn’t bother us because the sun was out and we were off walking around the beach eating an ice cream.

Eventually we met up with Tom and his parents for dinner and went to a Tiki bar afterwards for cocktails. I was friends with Tom in Mackay and he moved to Calgary a similar time I moved to the UK. We are staying with Tom and Trent in Calgary next week but just so happened to be in Vancouver at the same time because his parents are visiting so he is travelling around.

No photos from the second half of the day so I apologise for that. I’ll pick up my paparazzi game in the following days. It’s morning at the moment and our last full day in Vancouver. We are going to head out for breakfast and then just cruise around the city-nothing special planned. Will most probably not post again today so next time you hear from us we will be in Calgary- Yee Haw.

M 🤙🏻

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Day 2 – Still in Vancouver

Hi all, finally I’m awake enough at the end of the day to actually sit down and write something on this blog. You may have noticed that we’ve changed the name of the blog to “letters to home“. This is slightly inspired by my nanna who told us to start writing down our travels in a journal so we could look back and remember the details when we’re her age, fingers crossed we’ll still be able to work this when we’re 89.

Moving on to what we actually got up to today! We started the day in the gym since this is the only accommodation we’ll have with access to one in the next 3 months. Please refer to picture 1 (McSporran, 2019) to see Mitch in his new Lululemon singlet (vest to the Scots reading).

With the weather looking much like Scotland does most days we headed off to Granville Markets on Granville Island where we had read there was food galore not to be missed.

It was a long walk but gave us some nice views of the city we hadn’t seen yet.

The markets were surprisingly busy considering it was lunchtime on a Tuesday but we persevered through the crowds to get our hands on the donuts we had read so much about.

FYI – best doughnuts ever! Still warm, a bit sickly sweet but soooo worth it. The honey dip is fan favourite but I can attest the freshly baked jam filled ones were also delish! The market also sells fresh produce and very good coffee.

After stuffing our faces we headed back towards the city to Gastown.

Side story here – Vancouver hasn’t quite got to the advancement of Paisley buses wherein you can pay for transport using a contactless debit card (credit only – North American’s love using credit cards for everything!). We didn’t have change for the bus so in typical super friendly Canadian form, we got let on for free!

Anyway back to Gastown which is the oldest neighbourhood in Vancouver and home to the steam powered clock (not sure exactly how this works). We explored a bit and sat down for a drink in the sun before heading back to the apartment for the evening. It’s not far from our apartment so we’ll probably make another trip back since this is known as the foody area.

Hope you’ve enjoyed this slightly longer read from me! Until next time – Katy

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Vancouver

We have had a very big day and I am currently writing this with the tops of my eyelids trying so desperately to rendezvous with their counterpart so please accept my apologies in advance for errors.

We both woke about 5:30am this morning with obvious jet lag so decided to make the most of it. We first of all went for a leisurely walk to get our bearings and “stumbled across” one of the many Tim Hortons franchises that’s happens to be on every corner of the city. Katy’s favourite, so we grabbed a coffee and headed back to lift some iron in the gym of our BnB. By the time we had been on our massive walk, busted out big upper body gym session and a devoured a healthy breaky in our apartment it was… 9am :/

Next plan was to a) find a good deal for SIM cards on our phone as we wandered through the shopping district and b) make our way towards Stanley Park where we planned on hiring a bicycle.

Fast forward a few hours and we’re on our bicycles, pedalling through/around a magnificent thick pine forest with a purpose built bike track around what they called the “sea wall”. We stopped at various tourist attractions such as the Totem Poles and took many many photos. Exhibit A

The weather couldn’t have been better, 22 degrees and fairly still. Perfect! We spent the next 4 hours cycling while stopping for a chill in the sun and even managed to make it to one of the beaches and grab some lunch. All the cycling we did was either on Stanley Island (all bike tracks) or along the coast so we didn’t have to set foot/tyre on any roads at all. This was an added bonus to Katy who was visibly apprehensive at the rental place of her own skills.

Sun kissed, sore and struggling to make sense of the bicycle paths we managed to navigate our dual wheeled chariots back to our rental in the allotted time and sit down for an ice cold beer (conveniently it was happy hour). Afterwards, we were feeling a bit sunburnt so thought we would check out another popular shopping street on the way back to our flat.

It was at this moment I finally caved to peer pressure (sorry mum). Katy has been bugging me to buy LuluLemon clothing for a long time with all the usual shopaholic excuses (ThEY laST a LoNG TImE) I had been looking for singlets and I found one I liked so I ignored the £42 ($80) price tag and listened to my girlfriend. However, it is lovely and is apparently a collaboration from the Marc Jacobs designer so its worth it right?

In other news, our swimming pool at our accommodation is freezing so I swam alone and Katy watched (surprising). By the time I’d showered and eaten some food in our apt for dinner it was time to write this blog. Time flies when your having fun on your bicycle on day 2 of your trip with burning legs and burning skin and a burning wallet doesn’t it!?!?

Side note: this city is absolutely lovely. It has everything; lots of greenery and pine trees everywhere, beaches, marinas, cbd, transport etc we’ve definitely started this trip in a wonderful city. The people of Canada are so FRIENDLY. I thought the Irish were friendly but the Canadians have them beat. I find myself chuckling at the extent of their friendship with even the most minor of interactions, I’ll no doubt touch more on this subject in future posts.

Might be Katy’s turn to write tomorrow so you can tell us who’s literacy is more entertaining. If Mr Wynn’s year 11 English class is anything to go by, my bets on Katy!

Time for a well earned sleep

ZZZZ

M 🙂

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Transit

Glasgow-Reykjavik-Vancouver. The first leg was easy for some (me) as I slept the whole 150min. Poor Katy had to endure her own entertainment methods without a pal to annoy.

We stepped off the plane and had 1hr in Iceland to grab a bite to eat, jumped back on the exact same plane we disembarked and headed for Vancouver. Luckily we ate a very expensive sub roll because it turns out Iceland Air doesn’t serve any food on an 8 hour flight (no wonder they’re all skinny). As we flew over Greenland the pilot announced to look out our window as we were directly over the Glaciers. They were magnificent, our altitude was 11,000m and we weren’t much higher than their peaks.

We landed in Van and devised a plan. As we usually do in a new city, suss out our location, see what’s close and go grab a small amount of groceries for our Air BnB. We’re staying in Yaletown which is as central as you can get so we are deep in the dense concrete jungle 16 floors high to be exact.

Tomorrow should involve seeing the beaches that are in walking distance, checking out any tourist attractions worth seeing and investigating how we are going to see Stanley Park (Vancouvers version of Central Park). It’s meant to be 23 degrees so you better believe I’m dusting off the havaianas and getting some sand between the toes!

Peace out

M 🙂

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Gearing up

First post of an exciting next few months. All packed and ready to rock’n’roll. Lunchtime flight to Vancouver tomorrow via Reykjavik. Post will be predominately by me (Mitch) with possible occasional posts by Katy.