Entering into summer

With posts becoming few and far between you do wonder what we get up to all day.

As I mentioned in a previous post, my lovely parents came over for a week at the end of February - celebrating our 'Canniversary'. This celebration brought with it a number of enlightening moments, many of which will reveal themselves over the coming months and year.

March was a whirlwind personally as I moved to a new job. I am very fortunate to work for such a great organisation and the work they do is phenomenal - or phenomenally Canadian according to L. I work with Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative dealing with all things donation related. It is wonderful fun and I am continually learning every day about the projects that we lead or support on, from the tip of Yukon all the way down into America to Yellowstone National Park. For obvious reasons all things bear interest me the most though hearing about the destruction and damage of Dam's (Site C being the most current and horrific) on the environment is overwhelmingly sad. Yet the government see $$$$$ rather than nature. Plonkers.

April was by far my most cherished month here. The arrival of a beautiful baby boy and most beloved sister!! I haven't seen my nephew since he was three moths old and now he is a full year, they changes in him were astounding. He looks like a little man, or more specifically my dad. He is the cutest and most charming baby ever, and a super-duper flirt with the ladies! Waving and grinning
at every girl he saw! We had a wonderful time together and couldn't believe how quickly time flew by.

And here we are at the end of May. Yikes. This month we had L's mum visit us for a week and to take full advantage of the Holiday Monday we decided, at the last possible minute, that we would drive to Victoria. That is correct, a 14 hour drive EACH WAY for a 3 day break. On Friday night we strated our ambitious drive and stopped in Sicamous, then at 5am Saturday morning we continued the journey to reach Cordova Bay on Vancouver Island. It was the best decision ever as I have missed the ocean so much, I am truly a water person and lakes just do not have the same influence on me.

Sunday we explored downtown Victoria, enjoying Fisherman's Wharf and a marching band competition in front of the Legislative Building then on Monday morning 4am (after watching an amazing sunrise) we drove back to Canmore. Worth every minute.

Catching up almost to present - which would include the tale of L cutting his foot on a rock while climbing Saturday and 24 hours later being taken to hospital by moi with blood poisoning. He had to have 4 days of IV antibiotics, we are now friends with all A&E Dr's at Canmore Hospital, and now he has a further ten days of heavy duty oral antibiotics to make sue it doesn't come back.

As you can see we are keeping busy and continuing to explore Western Canada. With one more significant visitor booking to arrive in August for three weeks of climbing, hiking, kayaking and surfing who knows what stories we will come back with!

Ella, oil and the little place along the road from Matara

A little tired and exhausted, we arrive in Ella after our trek up Sri Pada and a four hour train journey from Hatton, during which we stood the entire way.

The skies had opened and it was torrential rain by the time we arrived and due to the exhaustion of constant travel and the random hours our bodies were functioning, we just wanted to move on to sunnier climates. So we decided during our early-bird dinner (a whopping 5.30pm) we were going to catch another crazy bus to Matara, the home of beaches and sunshine.

Unfortunately it was just our luck that is was the biggest Poya of the season and all schools and work were on holiday which meant everyone, including the locals, were hoping to get the same bus.

By this point, unsurprisingly we just wanted to sleep and found ourselves a cheap little hostel under a restaurant where we effectively went to sleep at 7pm and woke at 7am just in time for our bus to the next location.

The bus journey was at least five hours, or there abouts. Do not let Google maps tell you otherwise. Sri Lanka takes longer to get around than one would expect.

I managed to get a seat at the back of the bus with an open window to feel the breeze on my face... It wasn't until two hours later Lew mentioned I had a black eyebrow and how odd that was, that I scraped my finger along the left of my face peeling off a layer of oil slick from my skin did I realise why I felt 'radiant'.... epic. I have never before experienced such pollution directly to my face. I guess it serves me right for trying to stay reasonably cool while travelling.

As we flew past stunning scenery and national parks we enjoyed chatting to the locals and some fellow travellers who were looking for the sun that we all had missed the previous day.

Instead of staying in Matara, we moved to a little place which is just a 200 LKR tuk-tuk ride out of town, which is a delightful, out-of-the-way nook in the coast that you can just completely chill out in.

We absolutely loved this little place, so much so I cannot remember the name of it....

Sri Lanka - Paradise is real

What can I say, we have become pro jet-setters in the past few months!

A mere ten days after our Vancouver trip Lew and I were back on the plane - thankfully this one with much better leg room, thank you Emirates - to Colombo, Sri Lanka.


By our first accoster

Firstly, can I just say that my rucksack was smaller than Lew's. This is a phenomenal feat on my part, as I have been known in the past to over-pack. Shocking I know.

We arrived in Colombo at 8 in the morning after travelling for over 28 hours. I managed to prioritise movies over sleep on the flight and so arrived looking like a startled baby owl wondering why on earth the sun was shining and where the heat was coming from.
We were staying our first day in Mt Lavinia, about 30 minutes from the centre of Colombo and right next to the beach which worked very much in my startled-state's favour. Stumbling upon the beach to try and stay awake we were accosted by an Australian-Sri Lankan, our first of many friendly accosters, that offered to take a picture of both of us.

We then made our way - via a super train journey - to Kandy. What a stunning place filled with crazy tuk-tuk drivers and the Scared Tooth Relic. We had a delightful two days here, wandering the streets and meeting the self-named 'dream team' that had all been on our flight to Colombo from Dubai. Unfortunately our accommodation was atrocious but never dwell on the negatives huh?

After Kandy we went to Nawalapitya, the central location for growing tea. We stayed on Greenwoods tea plantation in their luxury villa and were the only ones there for several days, which I certainly will not complain about. We were pampered and well looked after by Rowan and the team, from private walking tours around the hills where we got leeches, Lewis more so than me, to taking the bosses car to visit the stunning local waterfall. The food was amazing and the smoothies were even better, the part we loved most was them telling us the watermelon wouldn't be ripe for another week. Everything was so fresh we were in heaven!

From here we moved on to Dalhousie, the base for Sri Pada and what would be an epic walk for me and an easy going morning stroll for Lew.

Our next challenge: reach the summit of Sri Pada.