Scooby is legally Albertan!

The past week has been another learning curve where we discovered the difference between a BC car and a Albertan car – apparently a lot.

Within 90 days of arriving in Alberta a person must change their drivers license to an Alberta license by sacrificing their original one in a not-so-romantic ceremony, apply for a form to arrange a car inspection. Yes, you apply for the form to permit you to get your car checked. Then you get your car checked and if it passes you have 14 days to pay for an Alberta registration and ta-da!! You are now legally driving in Alberta.

Scooby of course passed with flying colours and survived this process while I made friends with the girls working in the Canmore Registry Office with my extensive visits!

You didn’t think I was out playing amongst the mountains the whole time did you?

From the Coast to Canmore

With a week until his job started, we decided to drive back to Victoria in a single day to tell our very nice landlord that we were very sorry but we were not going to be staying like originally thought.

Nine hours later we arrived back at our little apartment in Oak Bay, exhausted and drained from the trip. We informed our landlord of the sudden change and Lewis’ job offer and she wished us well.

The very next day, we packed up what little belongings we had accumulated in our time in Oak Bay - a green whistle kettle that Lewis will never part with and a vintage bike for me – and after a delicious dinner with our North Saanich friends we began our journey back to Canmore.

In a matter of days we had completely flipped our semi-planned life and landed feet first amongst the mountains of Canmore.  Thankfully, upon our return we loved it even more than we remembered and knew we had made the right decision.

Within a week of arriving back and staying in two rather shmeh hotels, we had found an apartment in the Three Sisters area, a lovely little area based at the base of, you guessed it, the Three Sisters! They are three prominent mountain peaks that can be seen from anywhere in Canmore.

On our first night in the unfurnished apartment we camped on yoga mats in front of the fireplace and thought it would be a novelty. That was until Lewis wouldn’t hush about his back and ‘how it was so much more uncomfortable than camping’. This admittance was worth it actually as it means I may be able to postpone camping a little while longer!

And so here we are. In a top floor, west-facing, two-bedroom apartment with an amenities building that includes an indoor and outdoor hot tub, steam room, pool tables, bar and very well equipped gym.  Find an apartment: Tick!

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.