165 days in Canada EH !

Day 159 -165 - Goodbye Canmore

2012-02-24T17:56:00.001-08:00

First we have to apologise for taking sooooo long to post our last update. We are now safe and sound back into our old lives on the Gold Coast, and it almost feels like our time in Canada was a dream... Thank god we have this blog to remind us of all the wonderful adventure and the beautiful sceneries we experienced in amazing CANADA!!!

We finally said goodbye to the place we called home in Canada, Canmore, more specifically we lived at the Falcon Crest Lodge which was pretty awesome!

In the last few days in Canmore the weather turned significantly colder. We did however manage to get one last Snowboard day in before the weather turned and the ski fields were closed:

Marc got upgraded to a flash nice car...

We even had room for our snowboards.... so off we went to Sunshine Village..

We had a great day, but I got a little too confident towards the end of the day and took a few hard falls straight on my back which was a shame. At least the weather was nice for our last day!!!

As our last post indicated, we had our beautiful "Spirit Bear" to take care of, which meant 2 walks a day, this proved particularly challenging on our last few walks in -40 degrees (-31 plus wind chill)!!! I had never been so COLD in my LIFE!! We don't have many pics of those walks as we couldn't bring ourselves to pull the camera out for too long without wearing gloves but here is one that paints quite a picture:

Here are some pics of the last few days in Canmore.

Spirit on my favourite town walk along the river...

Photo of us at the top of Norquay with Mt Rundle in the back ground.

And here is our last night in Canmore, we had dinner with our stunt doubles.... Katie and Sean. Don't they look like us...

I met Katie as she was my replacement at work at the gallery, turned out they needed a place to live so they ended up taking over our lease as well. We joked that they were taking over our lives....

We had an awesome last night in Canmore and had heaps of fun with our new friends, pity we didn't meet them earlier!

The next morning we had to finally say goodbye to our comfy little condo in Canmore, nicely greeted by crazy cold weather!

Marc clearing the snow off the truck before we could drive off...

Not many crazy people out in this weather, but we did bump into Katie and Sean out in the street while we were walking Spirit, so we took that time to say goodbye to Spirit and left her with our stunt doubles....

Marc was very sad to say goodbye and so was Spirit

Before we hit the road for the airport, we stopped by our favourite coffee shop for some hot apple cider with a cinnamon stick... mmmm

And we couldn't resist coming back to the gallery to give Spirit one last cuddle before we got in the car.

The drive was crazy, windows all fogged up and frozen, could hardly see where we were going.

Marc had to fill up the gas (petrol) tank and didn't put his gloves on. In that time alone he got 1st degree frostbite!!

Would you believe we got charged for excess luggage.....

Hello (much warmer) Vancouver!!!

First thing we did in Vancouver is go to our favourite Fish and Chip shop in the WORLD!!! Go Fish!! HELLO SALMON BURGERS, TUNA TACOES AND YAM FRIES!!

Although it was cold in Vancouver, we didn't find it cold at all, just a little too wet! We still ate outside under a heater!

Then it was time to get some yummy fruits from Grandville Island markets!

We had the chance to catch up with Hailey, an old friend of ours from the coast who had just moved to Vancouver for work. Pretty funny when we drove across town to meet her, only to realise she was staying in the exact same hotel we were....

So after cleaning our apartment and packing up 8 bags, a long scary drive to Calgary, a flight to Vancouver where it didn't stop raining, a flight to Sydney where we went to an awesome wedding, a flight to Brisbane where we nearly lost our lap top and hard drives (which means all our photos!!!) and drive back to the Gold Coast we are finally HOME!!

It took me forever to get the chance to post this last blog, simply because we slid straight back into our busy lives with gorgeous friends a family to spend time with. Very different from our quiet little town of Canmore where our days consisted of driving around and taking photos!

We had a once in a life time trip, Marc and I will never forget our time in Canada. Not only did we have the amazing chance to see so much wildlife and expand our photography portfolio, what the photos remind us of is the simple and special things like:

- The first day it snowed,

- The first time I saw my wild bear

- Gaining an appreciation for hiking :-)

- Carving pumpkins with mum for thanksgiving

- CAMPING IN BEAR COUNTRY!!

- Seeing wild animals around the country side like moose, elk, dears, big horn sheep, black bears, coyotes....

- Walking with the WOLVES!

- One of my favourite memories of all, kayaking and camping along the Johnston straight seeing and photographing killer whales, bald eagles, wild salmon and sea lions

I have to say, what made our time in Canada such a pleasant experience was the wonderfully kind people we met along the way. From our first stay in Vancouver with Patrick and Kevin who gave us a tent and queen blow up mattress, we would never have camped without that, to the amazing friends we made on our Kayak trip Christy, Flo & Caroline, Helen and of course our friend Claude who took us in and made us discover "her backyard" as she calls it!

Not forgetting our friends from the Discovery Lodge Beth, Allan & Donna who made us jump into freezing cold water at night to witness the most spectacular natural phenomenon of the Bioluminescence (thanks guys!) and the memorable roommates we had at different hostels like Helen & Chris and Vangelis!

Meeting Jason and his dog Spirit really made our time in Canada so much more than we expected. Not only was Jason a great mentor and boss, he is a great friend and we feel very lucky to have met him.

Thanks everyone for being so kind, supportive and genuine along the way! Thanks to our friends and family who followed us on our blog and sent us wonderful messages of support and encouragement. One thing we did learn is that lifetime moments are made better by the people you share it with...

Sending you all a big hug and kiss from us both and again thanks for everything.

Love Marc and Sandrine

PS: Marc is planning on putting together a collage video or our time in Canada so stay tuned, until then take care!

Day 155 - Looking after 'Spirit' the Great Pyrenees

2012-01-14T13:47:00.000-08:00

Lately we have been getting up super early to catch the sunrise as we are dog sitting at the moment and 'Spirit' the Great Pyrenees dog needs to go for a walk first thing in the morning. It's great because we have been getting some great sunrises.

Here are some shots Sandrine took the other day.

This is Sandrine walking 'Spirit'

It's about -20 at the moment and it's starting to get even colder, next week a top of -27, now thats crazy!!!

A few months back we have photo's of this river flowing free with green grass and crystal clear water, so weird how everything has changed around here.

The sun has come out finally.

Where ever we drive 'Spirit' hangs out the window, she loves it.

We decided to head over to the Norquay Ski field, we heard the view from the top is amazing...

Ski lift to the top.

This is all the tube riders ready to fly down the slopes.

Mt Rundle in all it's glory!!!!

(That tiny bump below it is Tunnel Mountain and those little square specs is the town of Banff)

Chilling at the top of Norquay.

The view was worth the trip for sure...

ICE MAN

This is the 'Three Sisters' and the tiny roof tops is Canmore where we live.

Trying to find a place to walk 'Spirit', we were intending to walk here but a heard of over 50 deer kinda stopped that idea. 'Spirit' was a wild mountain dog and used to hunt for food so deer would drive her a little crazy.

Those tiny green dots to the bottom right are 20 to 30 metre tall trees. Give you a little perspective as to how insane this mountain slope is.

Hope you enjoyed the pics today, we have a bunch of HDRI's and PANORAMA's coming soon.

Marc

Day 150 - Beautiful Mountains around Canmore

2012-01-11T21:34:00.000-08:00

We decided to walk around our neighbourhood and get some photos of this beautiful surrounding we will miss so much...

We took a drive up towards spray lakes. The car we had rented didn't have very good tires, so it was very difficult to get up the mountain. We decided to turn around and go back down but took these two photos first.

Back in Canmore, we went back to the park where we went to watch the fireworks for new years eve. I knew it would have a nice view of Ha Ling peek, we could see it even at midnight. Here it is during the day:

So this is what we have been calling our back yard for the past 5 months.... I can't believe we are going home already! We are going to miss living in a small town, where everything is close and everyone is relaxed and most of all everywhere you look is just AMAZING!

Day 143 - 146 - New Years Eve and Johnston Canyon, Banff

2012-01-03T23:44:00.000-08:00

We sold our car on New Years Eve! Had to walk home from downtown in the dark after midnight. That was actually really fun! We got to watch the fireworks by the river in pitch black darkness which was really special. Here are some photos from the night at Sean and Jo's house with their dog Milly!

Milly took a liking to Marc's beer... she is such a funny dog...

After spending the 1st day of the year lazing around our place, we decided to hire a car and go for a hike at Johnston Canyon. The Canyon, was awesome! The hike was so beautiful, took us 3 hours in total but so worth it!

We had to hire some crampons to walk along the canyon. Every person we saw who didn't have them were sliding all over the place. We were just fine!

We got to walk all the way to upper Canyon with this view along the way

This is lower Canyon. The whole Canyon is frozen with still a flow of water under the ice and some patches of water wholes.

This is the amazing view we got when we first got to the upper Canyon, took my breath away!!!

We climbed down to the water to try and stand on the frozen water fall but we couldn't get through... as the ice had melted too much...

This is the water flowing under the frozen canyon breaking the ice at the bottom.

This is the entrance to the lower canyon viewing area. It goes right through the rock onto the other side.

This would have to be the most beautiful husky I have ever seen! Check out his eyes.. just amazing!

AMAZING!!!

This is the view of Pilot Mountain along the way down from our hike.

As we are approaching the the last week of us spending time in Banff, Marc decided to take random photos around town...

Here are some cool night shots we took from spray lakes with the very familiar view of Canmore's Ha Ling Peak which is the tallest mountain on the left.

We played with the flash light to make some cool effects... was fun but COLD!!

Day 143 - New Years !!!!

2012-01-01T14:43:00.000-08:00

Today is New Years Day and we are just chilling at home. With no plans at all we ended up hanging with friends Shaun and Joe.

We watched some ice hockey, Canada VS USA. (Canada won by the way) and then watched Dick Clarks New years Rocking Eve show which was pretty cool.

Before midnight we headed off towards the river in -19 degree weather. There was more ice than road so we had to tread carefully. The fireworks were pretty awesome. After that we tried to find our way home in the dark and unfamiliar streets. It was our first little adventure in the New Year and can't wait to make this year greater than the last which will be pretty hard to do.

By the way here is a sneak peak of our day with the wolves...

Hope you enjoy

Marc

Day 140 - Walking with the Wolves

2011-12-29T21:08:00.000-08:00

Marc and I gave each other a very special Christmas present this year... we got to go on a private walk in the woods with WOLVES!!!

After waking up in the dark at 6 am and driving 3 hours to Golden in a blizzard, we finally made it to this wolf sanctuary called Northern Lights Wildlife Wolf Centre.

We actually walked with two wolves, Wiley is a pure wolf (the bigger one of the two) and Aspen is a Wolf dog (50% wolf, 50% husky). Wiley was very impressive in his size alone, but his colour, his eyes and his wolf demeanour was such a privilege to see in his natural habitat.

This is Aspen in the foreground, you can see how much smaller she is than Wiley. They get along really well and always go on walk together.

Aspen actually has the top of one of her ears missing as she got in a fight with one of the other wolves.

Given this wolf was "imprinted" (meaning he is used to human contact and is not fearful of humans), it is easy to view him as a pet.... until you see his size and most of all his teeth!!!

The wolf is not being aggressive, he is just playing with his owner and displays his emotions differently to dogs. He growls when he is getting a cuddle and snarls when playing.

As you can tell, I was having an awesome time...

The owner Shelley took a few photos of us with the wolves, which was really cool!!!

I even got to touch him a few times... until he growled at me... I didn't try touching him again after that. His growl sounded more like a deep rumble of thunder... pretty intense.

He was pretty interested in Marc's camera at one point and tried to take off the cloth cover we had on the lens with his teeth. Marc was surprised and how gentle he was trying to pull the cloth off... hehehe

We had the chance to get really close to these guys, it was GREAT!!!!

The big boy just caught a peace of meat in mid air, that is why my eyes are closed.... the noise of his jaw closing would rival that of a crocodile...

He came to check us out a few times, and we were told to cover our crutch with both our hands and say "NO" if he got too interested.... We never had to do it as he was more interested in his food.... It took so much restraint on my behalf not to cuddle him.... Such a beautiful coat.

Behaving like a puppy!! Rolling around in the snow...

TOO CUTE!!!

Casey and Shelley were pretty awesome! Gave us a day we will never forget!!

It was a great day being so close to a wolf. The day was mixed with a bit of nostalgia as we got some bad news on Boxing Day, our 11 year old dog Sasha had passed away back home. This was a very sad time for us and our family back in Australia. We will miss our Sasha Bum so very much... xxx

In memory of my baby girl

SASHA

July 2000 - December 2011

Day 137 - Merry Christmas Everyone !!!

2011-12-26T22:49:00.000-08:00

Woke up this morning to an overcast day. This is what we wish for in this part of the world, for snow!!!

So after opening our presents by the fire and having an awesome home cooked breakfast, we packed up and headed to Lake Louise! The lake is completely frozen and they have groomed it for ice skating! So we decided to give it a go.

It was so strange walking on the lake as we were admiring the beautiful blue colours of the lake only 2 months ago....

The fairmont had also built an ice castle in the middle of the ice skating rink which was pretty awesome!

It took some getting used to skating without a side rail to hold on to or a wall to slam into when you want to stop....

They had an awesome fire going on the edge of the skating rink, which worried me as I thought it was going to melt through the ice and make a big hole....

They also had a horse and sled ride but we felt bad for the horsies so didn't go for a ride in protest...

This is Marc's Grinch smile...

After we finished skating we pretty much just mucked around in the snow. There were kids on bobsleds, snow ball fights and building of snow men. Although building a snowman was almost impossible as the snow was super crunchy and wouldn't stick together.

The snow was very deep...

See what I meant about building a snowman.

This is me smoking the air.... reminded me of the time Vicky and I built a snowman when she was little..

We had an amazing day even though we really missed our family and friends back home....

I hope you enjoyed the photos today and hope you had a very Merry Christmas too...

Sammy

Day 135 - Sunshine in Sunshine again

2011-12-22T21:55:00.000-08:00

(Special note: All these photo's are taken with our little portable waterproof Lumix so they are not to the same level as usual with our Canon 5D)

Well we have fallen into a bad routine of waking up at midday lately and we had zero food in the house so we decided to eat at our favourite little shop in Canmore. 'La Belle Patate' which translated from french means 'The Beautiful Patato'.

View from 'La Belle Patate' (The beanie was a gift to Sandrine from the Quebecian owner)

So the next day we were no better as we woke up at 11:30am, we headed straight to the hills at Sunshine . It was a bit icy as, but in some parts plenty of powder, oh and the views were amazing....

I haven't had time to edit a video together but here is 4 mins and 45 seconds of hanging with us at Sunshine....

The powder in this area to the left was awesome so I stupidly decided to hike to the top for another run. My legs were shacking by the time I got to the top. Insane...

Was it worth it ? Not really...

This is where Sandrine carved up some awesome turns, I was soooo Proud.....

After a few runs we were wasted, not enough food before hitting the slopes. So we decided to refuel before heading home.

We ordered Nachos for 2, highly nutritious corn, msg, jalapenos and cheese with extra cheese.

We were going to snow board back to the car but now, not so much....

Short cut to the Gondola back to the Car...

Wicked day of boarding....

Christmas soon, Yah.

Marc

Day 132 - Banff Winter wonderland

2011-12-19T19:44:00.000-08:00

We are struggling to figure out what to do for Christmas. We have no relies to visit, no place to go , no christmas tree and no prezzies. For some reason we have no idea what to get each other for Christmas. We're thinking of going to Lake Louise just go shopping for the boxing day sales.

This is the beautiful Sunset we witnessed today on the way home. They're blurry as we were driving along but at least you can appreciate the colours.

UFO incoming..... This was shot in the early morning.

Interrupting Sammy's shots....

Saskatoon Berry Pie, SOOOOOOOO GOOD!!!! This is the best Pie we have ever eaten....

We had a Shinook come through Banff which gave us over 10cm of snow. FRESH POWDER!!!

spotted these guys by a trail by Tunnel Mountain...

This guy has serious attitude.

This is Sammy's favourite shot, amazing colour.

Hope you enjoyed todays shots.

Marc

Day 128 - Snowboarding in a white out....

2011-12-17T15:53:00.000-08:00

Todays blog is abit of a catch up as we are having abit of a stressed time lately. We have both given notice at our jobs, we're leaving our apartment and trying to sell our car before we leave.

UUUGGGHHH HAARRRRR ! Breath....

But in the meantime we have managed to Snowboard some more. It was beautiful for a while and then became a whiteout. The Ski Lift took us right into the clouds. We took the highest lift there is in Sunshine for the first time and we couldn't see more than 10 metres in front of us and it was Sammy's first blue run just to add fuel to the fire. But she loved it...

I changed my binding to 15/15 for a something different, that turned out to be a bad idea. 5/15 is way better for my style of riding.

Down the mountain the weather is a lot nicer, well we can see at least.

Sammy slashing through the powder. She's now getting off chair lift's without falling, switching natural to goofy and doing nice big S curves. Soooooo Proud.

(VIDEO IS STILL TO COME)

Sammy has gone a little nuts with the whole Christmas thing. She sings Carols all day long and freaks out when she see's cute little snowmen and other assorted Chrissy items. She's brought a few home lately.

This is currently my work desk....

Sandrine work Christmas Party was at the Crazy Weed restaurant.

This is the team at All in the Wild. On the left is Sandrine's boss Jason who is the wildlife photographer and owner of the gallery. Working in Canada has been really cool and definitely a great experience. Below is Sandrine getting her Christmas present from Jason...

We've had such a great time and really it a little bitter sweet that we're leaving actually.

Sammy was heading to work in the early morning and caught some beautiful morning sky shots.

This was 9 am, which is pretty much when the sun rises here...

Carolyn and Paul have come from Australia and were passing though Banff on their Canadian/American trip. We all caught up and had a wicked time eating out and having drinks in Banff and Canmore...

Maybe a little too much fun...!

Hope you enjoyed our happy snaps.

We are planning and big trip over the next 2 weeks so stay tuned for our next updates.

Marc

Day 122 - Amazing Day at Sunshine

2011-12-12T22:53:00.000-08:00

Woke up to this beautiful view

Jumped out of bed at the break of dawn (9:30am)

Our car battery went dead from leaving an interior light on and now our radio is locked as a security feature. So Sandrine has decided she doesn't need a radio, she's going to sing a mix of Dr. Dre and Eminem.

Going a little batty....

Sitting on the Gondola to go up to Sunshine, we're FREEZING as it's minus 15 and the gondola reeks of weed. Wonder if it was the guests or the staff puffing the magic dragon on the way to the ski village...

POWDER!!!!

SUNSHINE!!!!

I've got a few videos of Sammy hitting the slopes but need a couple of days to go through the footage.

Panorama

Going home after a wicked day on the slopes, best snow boarding ever....

Headed into Banff for a quick bite, and then caught this sunset.

More pics to come shortly.

Sorry it was short and sweet, Will have more time tomorrow.

Marc

Day 120 - Stroll to work in Canmore.

2011-12-10T13:47:00.000-08:00

The weather was super nice today so Sandrine and I decided to walk to work and get a few picks of Canmore as it's a pretty awesome place to live and where gonna miss it for sure.

First guy we come across was this little guy.

He looks super tough until you look at his booties. hehe

He doesn't like cold paws.

Have to keep an eye on where your walking as it's mostly slippery ice.

My face is red because it's in pain from the cold the wind chill is crazy cold....

Oh yeah, we always see this head thing and never take shots of it so thought we should... Not sure what it represents but it is weird....

This the famous Canadian rail line, a Grizzley was killed on the tracks last week, apparently it's the bears biggest killer (trains hitting them). Especially in Lake Louise as there is a docking station there and a heap of grain gets spilt onto the tracks all the time and attracts the bears.

Spotted this guy on the tree, he started squawking really loud so I would get out of his territory.

Here are some random pics from Calgary last week.

Trying to get the the Mall.

Sunrise from our bedroom window.

This was taken last week, it was an amazing sunset and we missed most of it as we didn't have the camera handy.

Look out for our next post as it may be a little wolfy.....

Marc

Day 115 - Calgary Trip

2011-12-05T01:35:00.000-08:00

So Calgary eh.........

This by far the worst city in the world to try and find your way around in.

In the same few blocks there is a 3rd st SE, 3rd st SW, 3rd st NW, 3rd st NE, 3rd Ave SE, 3rd Ave SW etc.

When you look up directions you basically take note of the street names and general area and it's usually pretty easy to work out.

"So take 12th ave, left at 16th and then 9th street, or was it 9th ave. Shit was it 9th SE or 9th SW. Crap we took 16th ave not 16th street. Also every road is one way except every 3rd or 4th rd. Plus the signs above roads don't tell what street they are, they tell what exits that road has coming up.

I literally screamed "I f%$^#*# Hate you Calgary!" whilst waving a closed fist wildly.....

I miss you Sat Nav.

Anyway we went to Calgary as Sandrine was working at the Art and craft Convention for the 'All in the Wild' Photography Gallery.

We drove 2 hours through blizzard conditions and then spent 8 hours setting up the booth. Check it out (below) We set up everything including the drapes, lighting, Steel frames and picture frames etc.

The day we set up I had the worst migraine EVER, which also turned into a fever, chills, terrible stomach aches, body aches, nausea, and later that night confusion, hallucinations and chronic dehydration. And then it went away, lasted about 24 hours of me thinking I was going to die and then mild headache and that's it. Weird right...?

Anyway after spending 3 days in bed whilst Sandrine worked 12 hour days on her feet at the convention I decided I had to do something whilst in Calgary. The Zoo seemed to be the best option. It was -11, snowing about 1 foot and hour so I thought it would be great to get a pic of the Siberian Tiger in the snow. I have never seen one as in Australia they only have Bengal Tigers, which are almost half the size of Siberian Tigers.

Here are some pics from the Canadian Wild life area. I was the only one in the whole zoo apart from 1 or 2 people. It was weird as the paths were narrow and windy, super quiet, deep snow and all the signs were covered in a foot of snow, so I could easily be going the wrong way. At one point I saw some low fences and I crossed some animal tracks and thought maybe I wondered into an animal enclosure. I looked up and saw this guy.

Big Horn Sheep

As you can see the snow is pretty heavy.

BISON - These guys aren't bothered too much by - 10, they live in up to - 100 with wind chill so this is prob no biggy for them.

WOLF - This guy was very interested in me, as I was the only person around and hiding in the bush by the fence.

JUVENILE BALD EAGLE - This fella is just gorgeous.

COUGAR - These are the guys we look out for when were hiking. Apparently you have to fight back with these guys if they attack, scream loud to ward them off, throw big rocks at them and look as large as possible whilst never taking your eyes off them. Kind of like a Gorilla defending it territory. Very different story to the Grizzly.

SIBERIAN TIGER - I finally found them at the far end of the park.

This guy was in solitary confinement. He was a big territorial male and I'm very sure he wanted to eat me. At one point he leapt up on the window to try and grab me. So weird, he looks like he his not watching you but always is, When I was there I didn't think he was watching me closely but in every shot he is staring straight down the lens. He is also constantly looking for ways to get though the fence to get to me, and looking for weaknesses in the cage.

It's hard to tell but this guys head is huge....

This female however was much more content and relaxed. Don't get me wrong, every time she walked by me she grunted and snarled a little (as we were only a foot or so away), I was probably bothering her by being so close.

RED PANDA - These guys are the cutest animals in the world. FACT!!!

VARIOUS MONKEYS - Everybody loves monkeys.

REINDEER - The grass is always greener on the other side eh...

I have had enough by this point and my hands were freezing, I could of seen Giraffe's, Hippos and Gorillas will have to be another day. I went into the Gorilla exhibit and my lens all fogged up as the temps and humidity was Singapore summer style.....

I hope you enjoyed the pics and apologies for not updating earlier but it would just by the inside of our hotel room.

Cheers

Marc

Day 111 - Snow boarding is not all fun and games

2011-11-29T01:16:00.000-08:00

On Saturday, it was such a nice day that I decided to go snowboarding on my own while Sammy had to work...... Little did I know, he was going to have a CRAP DAY!

I dropped Sam off at work and headed over to Sunshine. The road was Icy but it's always Icy, so anyway I've got Winter tires so it's no worries. Or so I thought.....

So I've turned off the highway and I'm on my way to Sunshine Gondola doing about 60 - 40 km's. A bit of a sharp corner comes up and I should have adjusted my speed to around 20 km's per hour.

Suddenly the car starts drifting sideways and I panicked and over corrected which sent the car into a 360 spin across both lanes and slamming into the snow mound wall of the road.

( re-enactment )

After a second or two of sitting in the car thinking "what the hell just happened" I realise I'm facing the wrong way on a blind corner and my door is jammed by the wall of snow and I knew a car was coming around the corner in a few seconds as I saw it behind me earlier.

Luckily she was doing a safe speed and saw me and pulled over. She was very nice about it and jumped in the drivers seat and spun the wheels whilst I pushed the back of the car. After a minute or two of nudging the car inch by inch and pushing to the point of exhaustion another guy pulled over and gave me the help I needed to finally push the car out. We all shook hands and said hope the day gets better.

This experience reminds me of a story Justin and Sarah told me about of when they were living in Banff. Only they didn't have winter tires and I did. I thought these tires were like SUPER tires that never slip.... :)

So I park the car at the very end because it's a Saturday and every man and his dog is here, walk a mile to the gondola in -11 and in my snowboard boots. The gondola up to Sunshine Village is actually quite long and it's only moments before I realise snowboarding on your own is boring and I left the camera in the car, so I couldn't even take advantage of the beautiful day on the mountain top....

When I arrived I went straight to the highest peak I could find to offset the boredom, I knew every chairlift had a GREEN run so I didn't bother to research any runs. Of coarse once up the top I couldn't see anything as it was a whiteout with galling winds of 80 km's per hour. So much for the nice weather....

So with my luck I ended up accidentally doing 'Black Diamonds' all the way down, some of it on my knees . The worst part was watching a group of fricken snowboarding pro's doing massive air grabs right over me, literally....

So after a few BLUE runs which I was way more comfortable with, I decided to head home. I thought I might as well go to the very top of the mountain and snow board all the way back to the car park and skipping the gondola. About an hour later and I'm probably 200 metres away from the end, I'm tired, a little cocky and suddenly I'm air born, I have no idea how but I'm upside down in mid air at top speed and come crashing down on rock hard ice. I heard some thing crack which at first I thought was my spine but turns out was probably my board hitting something.

( re-enactment )

My helmet saved my life for sure as I smacked the ground hard hip first and then my head and slid about 30 metres or so like a penguin. I just laid there for about 1 minute foggy and in agony. Two guys stopped and were talking to me but I couldn't move or respond to them. They were saying

"Did you brake something, are you OK?"

I just mutted

"NO! aahhghghgh!!!!"

They then went to get a stretcher and a medic but for some reason I quickly felt alright. I got up and said

"I'm fine, seriously, I'm all good."

I assured them I wasn't dying anymore, I must of just got winded and crawled to the side and laid in the snow trying to think of how this day could be any worse.

I hobbled off to the car with a very bruised ego, drove home and told Sandrine of my disastrous day and collapsed on the couch. She was not impressed and suggested never snowboarding alone again. I agreed....

We did end up having a lazy day on Sunday and played with our macro lens and some matches ....

Trying to catch something that lasts a milli second is harder than you think.

I hope you enjoyed my little rant about my shitty day boarding and our macro pics.

Off to Calgary for a convention in a few days so we'll have some city pics for ya soon.

Marc

Day 108 - The Tree Sisters in motion...

2011-11-25T14:58:00.000-08:00

I was gonna go snow boarding today but I'm kinda buggered from setting up the Audio system at Lake Louise yesterday.

Example from Lake Louise in 2009.

As Sammy mentioned it's been snowing like crazy recently and we've kind of been stuck inside. But we have still managed to take the odd photo here and there.

I like this pic, the cool thing about living in the snow is you can easily track wild animals movements by the roads but in this case it's a guy (based on shoe size) with a car.

Sammy and I decided to get a multi-function timer controlled remote shutter release. Basically a remote for our camera. This way we can take photos at regular intervals or super long exposures.

I made a clip (above) of the mountains from down the street today. This was made by taking photos every 5 seconds. In my opinion it's too fast, next time I'm going to try 2 second intervals.

Short and sweet blog today. I hope you enjoyed the video.

Marc

Day 107 - Getting Cold in the Rockies

2011-11-24T21:40:00.000-08:00

We haven't been taking any photos lately as it has been very cold and snowing! Not that we are complaining, we finally had the chance to go snowboarding at Sunshine on Monday which was the best snow we've ever experienced! I even learnt to get off the chairlift without falling over, which I was quite excited about! Shame I couldn't repeat my performance a second time, but I guess practice makes perfect! I did manage to take turns but apparently I am a mixture or natural and goofy.... strange.

Sunshine is HUGE! You have to take this gondola for ages (20 - 30 mins) to get to the top, which we loved as we were out of the wind and snow. We went down the same green run 3 times, each time I was getting better, until the end when I wiped out and majorly bruised my back side ;-( The funniest part is that Marc stacked it on a different run at the exact same time as me. He went down a more dangerous run which was narrow with big dips, he had to keep jumping constantly all the way down... CRAZY!

Marc had to work at the Lake Louise Ski Resort today, setting up for the Downhill Skiing World Championships. He was so jealous that he couldn't go snowboarding as it was a beautiful day just after a huge dump overnight which actually closed the road from Lake Louise to Jasper. They had over 55 cms in 48 hours, Marc said he actually saw people stuck in powder up over their knees!

Here are some photos from today, courtesy of Lake Louise Website:

View of the Chateau from the top of the ski hill. Such a beautiful view!!!

Marc and I also went to the movies on Sunday and enjoyed a night in Banff, which was nice. The temperatures have reached -21 last week. Breathing in these temps hurts, so had to cover my face when walking to work. Today wasn't as bad, only -6 this morning, but the side walk was very slushy on my way to work.

So that's all we have to report for now. I'm working for the next few days and the snow is awesome so Marc might be going snowboarding on his own tomorrow, NOT FAIR!

Take care everyone!

Oh and here are some more pics of the dump we had the last day or so.

AWESOME

Day 100 - Woohoo

2011-11-17T22:22:00.000-08:00

So I just did a recount on how many days we've been in Canada and realised that TODAY IS THE 100th DAY IN CANADA!!!

Marc and I have been doing alot of driving in the past 2 days, both of which were very early days. We got to see a gorgeous sun rise yesterday as the sun doesn't come up till 8 am. Here are some photos we got from the drive to Calgary, these were all taken from a moving vehicle, but I couldn't resist taking some shots, it was so NICE!

This is my favourite. It is so Canada with the wire fence along the road....

Marc wanted me to take a photo of the sun behind this bridge, he thought it looked cool, he was right:

As the sun got higher, I took a few pictures on the other side of the highway, showing the nice morning sun light hitting the farms along the way..

This is the city of Calgary. We hate going into the city, we always get lost and there are road works everywhere!! Man, we really are small town folks now!! The city did look awesome in this light though!

Yep you know you're in a city when you see one of these towers rising up high ... It's crazy, do all cities have some secret contract that they must have a tower as part of their architecture ??

So that was yesterday. We spent the morning helping my boss set up for a 4 day exhibition. In 2 weeks, we gotta set up the same booth at another exhibition, so I was taking notes!!!

TODAY - on the 100th Day in Canada we experienced the scariest driving experience yet.. driving in a snow storm, on slippery icy roads, in the dark... It was CRAZY! Lucky we had winter tyres! It was so cold that the condensation on the inside of the windows FROZZZZZZZEE!! On the inside!!! Anyway, I think pictures will give you a better understanding...

Couldn't see a thing being other cars, let alone trucks!!

When we got to Golden, we couldn't believe how much snow there was everywhere....

We stopped by the bakery for a cup of hot tea and I also got a BEAR CLAW... YUM!!!

Marc took an photo of me eating but it was over exposed, he still liked the arty look to it so here it is
(unedited except small exposure adjustment and cropped)

This was too weird, we saw this sign on the way home and just a few meters behind it was our first BIGHORN SHEEP!

We were so happy to see him, we turned the car around and went back to get more photos. Not a very safe thing to do in the middle of a windy and snowy road...but we got some cool pics!

How cool are these horns!!! They almost compromise his vision at certain angles...

Female bighorne sheep (as you see on the right below) also get horns but only tiny little ones.. so cute!

Check out this snow plower, blowing snow off the road. We were stuck behind a few of these today and although I am happy they clean up the roads, it certainly got our car dirty and cold!

Here is a photo that will give you a good idea of the crapy conditions Marc had to drive through... he did a great job!

So there you go, sunny one day and snowing the next! Our adventure continues, even though we don't have as many updates as we use to, sorry about that! Sunshine (the ski resort closest to us) has now opened, so we'll be checking that out some time soon... well when I feel brave enough to give snowboarding another try..

Sammy ;-)

Day 092 - Soooo much pain!!

2011-11-15T23:23:00.000-08:00

As expected, I woke up this morning in PAIN! So much that I couldn't lift my head and I had to literally roll out of bed. Meanwhile, Marc is FINE! What he didn't tell you in the previous blog, because he is too nice, is that I sucked!!! I couldn't even get up the T Bar!!! That's actually where I hurt myself the most... sliding and falling off the T Bar, while little 4 year olds were just zooming past me.... They were so cute, kids just have no fear!

Anyway, so after 4 attempts at getting up the learners slope, unsuccessfully I might add and after smacking my head on the ice, I was ready to give up. My head was pounding!!! We decided to go up the chairlift, and to just try the green run. That was awesome! I mean I still fell over a few times but I managed to get some momentum and I even got to do proper turns by the time I got to the end. Marc went up 2 more times without me while I gave my head and legs a rest.

Today, I can't lift my right arm or turn my head to the right... apparently 2nd day is worse so tomorrow should be interesting...

Here are some more of the photos we took yesterday on our way home. Vermilion Lakes is right near the highway and has a great view of Rundle Mountain. We took a few photos of it a few months ago while it was still warm with some awesome reflection in the lake, but now the lake is frozen so no reflection. But we did capture some cool textures on the surface of the lake. We were soooo cold taking this photo, we didn't have any gloves on and the cold was so painful, it felt like millions of needles were going through our fingers... it was -15 degrees.

Check out these cool photos Marc took with the macro lens of some bubbles...

We are both working for the next few days so won't have much to report....

Take care everyone!

Sammy ;-)

Day 091 - Snow boarding Lake Louise

2011-11-14T20:22:00.000-08:00

We headed off first thing in the morning to Lake Louise to check out the first bit of snow for the season.

It was about -10 to -15 so we rugged up so no skin at all was exposed.

Turns out the snow was thin and icy, and in general not as fun as we were hoping for...

( FLUFFY POWDER !!!!!)

The good thing is, it was pretty quiet as it was a Monday and early in the season. Half price lift tickets too.

Sammy fell one too many times so she decided to hang out in the cool, chilled out bar upstairs and take some of photos. She was stoked as she was able to do full turns by the time we got down our first slope.

The cool thing about Lake Louise is that you can ski straight to the car park, which was a good spot to get some photos.

Spotted these guys on the way home...

Taking this photo was pure pain. We stepped out of the car for a couple of minutes and thought we didn't need gloves. After about 1 minute it felt like my hands were on fire. I had never felt such pain... I think the next few weeks are going to be an eye opener....!

Hope you enjoyed the pics. :)

Marc

Day 088 - Helene's last day in Canada

2011-11-10T11:04:00.000-08:00

For mum's last day in Canada we decided to go for a drive towards Jasper on the Icefields Parkway. We were lucky to have a gorgeous sunny day which was much better than the cold grizzly day mum had on her first day here. On the way up we stopped over at the Storm Mountain Lodge for lunch, this is a photos of mum and I at the front of the lodge.

Stepping out of the car, felt like we were stepping into a movie set. The snow was everywhere but the sun was shinning so strongly, it made the snow glitter. The little cabins were all covered in snow and the air smelled like burning wood. Magic!!

This was pretty cool, ice formed on the side of the building we were about to enter.

Two big fires were worrying inside to keep us warm. Mum was a bit freaked out by the chandelier made of antlers and the bison head hanging over the fireplace...

The icefields parkway looked a little different from when we went up to Jasper in September. All the lakes were frozen, snow was everywhere and alot of places were closed off such as Peyto lake.

We just had to stop and take some photos of this lake. The frozen water and snow were shimmering so much in the sun. The photos don't do it any justice, it was so beautiful.

Marc decided to go check out how frozen the lake really was by standing on it!

Here are some cool shots Marc took on the lake..

He eventually convinced me to go on the lake myself and slide around... was fun but I didn't go very far from the edge.

Ofcourse, we kept out eyes out for any bears we might spot on the way, but again no luck!

On the way home, we decided to take mum back to Lake Louise since it was such a nice day compared to when we took her the first time. Marc and Mum got in a snow fight in the car park which ended in ice down their shirts and mum sliding and hurting her knee again. Silly kids!

Marc took these photos when we got to Lake Louise..

We had tea in the very posh Fairmont Tea Lounge....

Mum and Marc relunctantly posing for a photo in front of the awesome snow covered backdrop. We were all very cold and keen on getting to the car... Marc recon's it was about -20.... ha does he has a surprise coming!!!

We went to Banff for Dinner at the Maple Leaf and had a very nice meal. We loved having mum visit, it was so much fun having her here. Made us miss home even more after she left.

Now I am working every day to make up for the time off I had last week. Marc is off work for a week because a speaker fell on his head at work leaving with a mild concussion and whiplash. Doc said he should feel better next week but he may experience severe headaches, exhaustion and irritability.... OUCH! Poor thing! :-(

Marc & Sammy

Day 084 - We're half way into our trip YEAHHHHH !!!

2011-11-05T21:16:00.000-07:00

We thought the weather may be terrible over the next week as we are expecting -15 degree temps so we decided to go to the top of Sulphur Mountain via the Gondola in Banff.

Banff Springs Hotel

Banff Downtown

Sammy giving me the finger with the safety of mittens cover.

The sun through the clouds.

For some reason Helene reminds me of THE THING in this shot.

Still dying to see this movie, I missed it at the Banff Cinema as it was only here for 2 weeks so we went to Calgary to see it and it had stopped showing it there too. Fricken bumbed.

Here is a shot of when I was here in the summer of 2005.

We tried to recreate this shot again but we didn't have a copy on hand so we didn't get the angle right. bumber eh....

But it is very close to being the same spot. Awesome.

Me giving sammy the finger....

By the way mittens are 100 times warmer than gloves if you were wondering.

THE THING IS WATCHING !!!!

Sammy giving me the finger x 2.

I heard that the movie 'Inception' was filmed around here and I thought this might be the snow base from the movie. I looked it up and it looks nothing like it.

Was getting fricken cold so we jumped on the Gondola and head down into the valley to see the Hoodoo's...

We're getting tired and abit wacko...

Hope you enjoyed the pics.

P.s. I added a countdown timer of when we heading back to Australia. Getting close now.

Cheers

Marc

Day 082 & 083 - Scenic drive in Kananaskis Country

2011-11-02T22:46:00.000-07:00

Last day of sunny weather was spent driving around in the country looking for wildlife in Kananaskis. Marc and I hadn't been there before so we decided to take mum while the weather was nice. Spending the day looking for bears really can be quite exhausting... we didn't find any but we did get to play with two huskies and found a few deers along the road.

Found some interesting tracks in the snow... none of bears though...

Marc was like a little boy playing in the snow..

The snow was so powdery, beautifull...

Pretty deep in some areas...

Ohoh, mum knew this was bad news..

How fun it is to play in the snow!!

These two dogs had just returned from crosscountry snowboarding with their owner. They dragged him up the hill and then ran behind him on the way down. Pretty cool. They were so friendly!

I love the two different colour eyes on this one, stunning!

I think we were there maybe 30 minutes, look at the ice forming under our car already...

Here are some white tail deer we saw along the road. They were pretty scared of us unlike the ones in Banff.

We made good use of our new winter tyres driving on snow!

This lake is fully frozen, you could probably skate on it. CRAZY!

The end of a LONG drive. We then went to eat at the Iron Goat and watched the sunset over Canmore. NICE!!!

Sammy :-)

Day 080 & 081 - Banff Springs Fairmont Hotel & Halloween

2011-10-31T23:26:00.000-07:00

Sammy and Helene had to drop me into work at 7:30am in the morning which is still dark here.

As the sun came up they headed to the 3 nearby lakes.

Abit chilly ( Approx -2 + wind chill)

After they did abit of sight seeing I was done at work (3hr shift which feels kind of bitter/sweet) and we headed into banff to try and find the last of our snow gear. The amount of stuff you need just to stay warm here is ridiculous.

LOTR Pezz (AWESOME)

So a few Halloweeners are starting creap into town. We only took shots of this guy for some reason though.

I wonder if he ski's in this? Looks warn...

So after abit of arm twisting I convinced Sandrine & Helene to come check out where I work. It's big, it's old and generally spooky.

Queen and Queen

This is the actual lighting in the hotel. Spooky right!!!

As you can see the weather is grose. Usually beautiful mountains can be scene out this window.

This is the haunted stare case, a lady getting married apparently cought fire in her wedding dress and then ran/tripped down the stair case and broke her neck which killed her. Legend says she haunts the stairs at night. WHHAAAAOOOOOOOO!!!! Spooky!

IT"S PUMPKIN CARVING TIME !!!!

For HALLOWEEN, not because we're just weird.

So we thought we are getting too old to play dress ups for Halloween and besides it's only fun when you know other people who are dressed up too. (wipes tear from cheek) So we decided to make some Halloween pumpkins instead as we have never done it before.

BEFORE

We each carved pumpkins using a different technique.

I used a Sharpie and drew on the design, then cut the roof off and scooped the insides out. Next step was cutting out chunks with a knife and creating the final details with a hack saw blade and screw driver.

Helene's technique was pinning and taping a printed stencil to the pumpkin (also wetting the page to make the paper hug the pumpkin).

She then punched the design in with a screw driver until she had a decent outline of where she needs the cut. She then cut the roof, scooped out the insides and cut out chunks with a knife.

Sammy's technique was simular to Helene's but her stencil was hand drawn by Sandrine.

AFTER

Sandrine's Pumpkin (middle) was bought 2 weeks prior to the other pumpkin's and is a different type by the looks of it as hers glows like crazy....

We were going to put them outside on the balcony but we thought we worked so hard on them we wanted to enjoy them all to ourselves.

Next day

COME ON SNOW!!!

So we are waiting for the snow. We thought snow season had started but it was just one day of snow and then back to normal...

We're getting a little impatient...

We finally got all our winter gear...

We finally got our Lift passes......

So where is the SNOW!!!! ?

We'll for now we're thrashing around in the lounge room....

Cheers

Marc

Day 079 - Hiking in Canmore Grotto

2011-10-30T20:18:00.000-07:00

On a beautiful autumn day, I took mum for a walk into town to show her the neighborhood. We walked around town and got some groceries to make lunch. Marc come by with the car and happen to find us along the road. We decided to make the most of this beautiful day and take mum on her first hike.

I had heard of this hike called Grotto Creek trail which was only 4 kms. We ate our sandwiches by this half frozen lake.

After lunch, we headed up the trail. We took a few wrong turns we thought we were on the right track but we ended up going up this steep way for nothing

The grotto was pretty cool, carved by running water leaving behind polished limestone valley.

Check out the ice forming in the creek... pretty cool

This is the limestone polished by the water. It is soooo slippery, took me forever to get up there and I had to do it backwards as I kept sliding back down.

Marc was having lots of fun the whole day destroying peaces of ice and playing with it.

Although it was hard at first, we really enjoyed the hike and had very sore legs at the end of the day. Perfect time to go into Banff for some suchi and Bubble tea!!!

Tomorrow we are carving pumpkins for Halloween....

Sammy ;-)

Day 077 & 078 - Helene arrives in Calgary

2011-10-28T22:36:00.000-07:00

HDR Image of the Day....

Well 2 HDRI's This one is abit bright so I'll prob revisit it when I get time.

It's hard to tell but I'm freezing.....

We picked up Helene from Calgary Airport last night and it was dark when she arrived so she hadn't seen any of Canada before now.

We told her that see just missed the yellow leave season so she is enjoying what she can of the leaves. lol

Helen and Sammy in the Canadian Rockies baby!!!

Sammy is giving me the evil eye...

We thought we should show Helene around and decided to drive down the Bow Valley Parkway, but unfortunantly saw NO wildlife at all. We did stop a few times for fotostops though.

This is Sandrine and Helene looking for bears in the woods....

And as the saying goes, "I don't have to run faster than a bear, I just need to run faster than you...!"

So basically we arrived at Lake Louise without encountering any animals and by this time we were starving. For some reason NOTHING was open in Lake Louise almost. We ended up going to our old Hostel for lunch, we knew they would at least be open.

We arrived at Lake Louise and it was loaded with snow. Some how one snow ball became all out war.

A perfect snowflake, It's the size of a tiny lady bug... It was very hard to get it in focus as I was moving, Helene was moving and her hair was moving all independently.

Just so you can see how dramatic the weather is changing here, this photo (above) was taken a month ago... From shorts and a T-shirt to wearing thermal base layers, T-shirt, Pants, jumper, thermal hoodie, goose feather down jacket, thermal gloves and beanie.

I found this particular decoration at the Faimont Lake Louise odd. The Elk has been positioned so he stares into this lamp for eternity. What a way to end up...

The view at the TEA LOUNGE !!! (Posh accent added)

Blurry pic but still interesting I thought....

In front of the Fairmont Lake Louise.

BLUE STEEL !!!

Your a Tiger, GRRRR!!!

Unknow paw print, possibly a Bear... ( upside down)

Sammy on the train tracks, these things are electrified but I'm just not sure how. I'll have to look that up...

This is a brocken bridge we stumbled upon.

This is possibly the coolest scenic location we have found so far, it's along the Bow Valley Parkway and has the mountains, the river, the grass and the railway. Very Cool.... We were looking for Rockey mountain sheep but once again No luck.

This actaully quiet random, this little chair sitting on the edge of this pontoon.

Sammy skimming rocks on the frozen lake, kinda cheating but who cares, it bounces like 50 times...

Just a cool breeze blasting off the lake freezing us solid...

We finally found wildlife at the good old Banff Springs Golf Coarse... Never fails with the resident Elk.

This guy was very interested in the squeeling of my car brakes or the lovely lady elk behind us... 1 of the 2 anyway.

What a Day.... More sightseeing tomorrow depending on the weather.

Cheers

Marc