March break. Most Canadians use the opportunity to go south where it is warm and sunny. We were considering the same - winter can be long, dark and grim and one does start to crave sunshine. But for various reasons, a sunny break didn't work for us. Either countries were on the "do not visit' list, or we couldn't get travel insurance or the resorts didn't have suitable rooms for a family of 5. We decided that we wanted something more exciting then Florida, so why not embrace the winter and book another skiing holiday. Banff it was - we'd always wanted to visit the Rockies anyway :)
The day of our Banff holiday dawned.....well not really as it was still well and truly dark when the alarm went off at 4am. No - not already! We hauled ourselves out of bed, got the kids dressed and loaded in the car and headed to the airport. After checking in and eating a quick breakfast, we boarded; Miss 4 with her trusty purple roll aboard case and the twins with their new Trunkis. (They loved pulling them around the airport!) We were really dreading the travel with the twins, as they were only 9 months when we moved to Canada and they hadn't been on a plane since. Thankfully, they weren't too bad. They were quite restless for the last hour (it was over a 4 hour flight) but thought that take off and landing was great fun. No sleep unfortunately! Oh well - at least they were happy.
We landed in Calgary, and after eventually getting our hire car (they asked if we really needed the car seats we'd booked??) hit the road. Calgary is quite flat (a prairie town) so driving towards the Rockies is quite spectacular; the mountains just seem to rise up out of nowhere. The twins managed to nap a bit and we stopped for lunch in Canmore, which is just south east of Banff. It's a very pretty town in the Rockies, but we didn't linger, so we made it to Banff early afternoon. A quick trip to the tourist centre saw the kids clutching more brochures then we needed, and we wandered along the main street and up to the Banff Springs Hotel, one of the Fairmont chain. A striking building, it sits above the Bow River and has that castle look common to so many of the Fairmonts. A nice place for an afternoon coffee too. Everyone was pretty tired by now with the early start and the time difference, so it was quick trip to the supermarket before check-in (an awesome 3 bedroom apartment at Hidden Ridge Resort), an early dinner and bed. The twins were sharing a bed for the first time so it took them a little while to get used to the idea.
Our first day of skiing was overcast with a lot of fresh snow. We were headed to Sunshine, which is about 20 minutes out of Banff. The village (which houses all the facilities, including the daycare) is actually at the top of the gondola, so the kids thought it was great fun riding up. We dropped them off, checked out a trail map and headed up the nearest chairlift. Then it got interesting. None of the runs were groomed, visibility was terrible, we had no idea which direction the run we wanted was in as we couldn't see the markers and there was so much powder we couldn't see our skis and were not skiing well at all. (We are used to much harder conditions around here.) After some coffee sustenance, we went up the chair on the other side, found some groomed runs, visibility improved and I heaved a sigh of relief! Hubby is a much better skier then I so adjusted to the conditions more easily, but by the end of the day I had the hang of it,and even skied some runs with soft, natural moguls. The scenery was absolutely stunning too, which helps you finish the day with a smile. We picked up the kids who'd had a good day, rode the gondola back down, and went back to our accommodation to put up our feet and unwind with a drink (and TV for the kids!)
Day 2 of skiing was bright and sunny. We headed to Lake Louise this time - a longer drive from Banff (40 mins) but a much larger ski area with a larger variety of runs. It was an earlier start as Miss 4 was booked into a lesson program so we had to be sure to get her there on time, but we managed to get everyone there and dropped off in plenty of time, so we hit the slopes quite early. It was one of those postcard perfect days - brilliant blue skies, snow capped mountains, spruce trees with a dusting of snow and virtually empty ski runs. Any description just sounds like a cliche, but it was seriously so beautiful that I have no superlatives good enough. I wanted to bottle the feeling of being up on those beautiful mountains. We enjoyed skiing some amazing runs (and I even made it down some tough runs with moguls that we ended up on) and just had an all-round fabulous day. At the end of the day, we found Miss 4 on a green run and spied on her as she had her second lesson for the day. She was not having as much fun as us - the green runs at Lake Louise are quite a step up from our local hills and I think she felt a little intimidated. She did make it down though and all the kids were glad to see us at the end of the day.
The next day we had a break from skiing to do some sightseeing. One problem we encountered, is that most tourism in Banff happens in summer, so there are lots of activities and attractions that don't open in winter, such as the local museums. We looked at some local sights (rock formations called Hoodoos, and the Bow River) then wandered around in town, had a morning coffee and let the kids choose a souvenir from one of the many shops on the main street. From there, we headed back to Lake Louise, this time to the Fairmont on the lake. (We'd had some amazing views of it from up on the mountain the day before.) The lake was frozen, so not it's usual beautiful blue, but it is still a spectacular location. We even splurged on lunch in the lounge with lake views, which turned out to not be a splurge as the kids ate free. After lunch, we'd signed up for a horse-drawn sleigh ride around the lake. Two beautiful Belgian draft horses named Chuck and Charlie pulled us around the lake as we sat in the sleigh snuggled up under blankets. It was very relaxing - in fact when we stopped at the far side of the lake so people could get out and look around I had to stay put as I had a very tired twin sleeping on me! Amazing scenery, and good people watching too, as there were plenty of people out walking, snow shoeing and cross country skiing on the lake as we went past, as well as some ice climbers tackling a frozen waterfall at the far end from the chateau. It was a lovely afternoon, and a great one for the kids too, as they really enjoyed the day. We finished off a great day by taking the kids into Banff for dinner.
It was back to the slopes on Thursday. We headed back to Lake Louise and after dropping the kids off again we headed up the mountain. It wasn't quite as postcard perfect as it was pretty cloudy, but there was fresh snow so the skiing was actually better. It was also a good day, as we were pretty familiar with the mountain so could pick and choose our favourite runs and lifts. Hubby tackled the back bowl with some pretty intimidating black runs and thoroughly enjoyed it. Miss 4 had only wanted a morning lesson this time, so we spied on her again; her instructor (who was the same one from Tuesday, and was also from Perth - what are the odds??) couldn't convince her to go up the chairlift again. It wasn't wasted though - even though she stuck to the magic carpet he got her to ski on one ski and ski backwards so she had fun and tried some new things. In general Lake Louise is a fabulous resort - everything is really well marked, they have mountain guides around the place to help out and the staff are all friendly and accommodating. On that note, we had noticed loads of Australians amongst the staff. Obviously we heard the accents, but all staff wore badges with their name and where they are from so even when we didn't hear them speak (such as lift operators) we saw loads of Aussies. I actually asked the Aussie who made our afternoon coffee (Gill from the Gold Coast) and apparently 75% of the staff are Australian. Pretty strange to hear so many Aussie accents in one place again.
Friday was our last day in Banff. We actually headed back to Canmore in the morning as we hadn't had much chance to look around on our way in. Coffee was the first item on our list, then we wandered along Policeman's Creek, which must have some kind of hot spring, as the water was steamy (not frozen) and there were ducks paddling around. It was actually colder then we anticipated so the kids ran out of steam quite quickly (should have worn more layers - oh well). It was another sunny day though, so lots of good photos. We had lunch in Banff before a bit of quiet time back at our hotel. We'd considered the Sulphur Mountain Gondola, but as the kids had been up the gondola at Sunshine ski resort it hardly seemed worth it. We did visit the famous Banff Hot Springs late in the afternoon which was great. Not very relaxing when you're watching kids, but the water was delightfully warm, and there's something decadent about lazing around in a hot pool when the air temperature is about -10 and you have a view of snow-capped mountains all around. A good end to the week.
We were flying out from Calgary on Saturday evening, but still had basically the whole day. After packing up, we drove back to Calgary and went straight to the zoo. It was a little too cold to be pleasant wandering outside all day, but lots of the exhibits are actually indoors (or indoors for winter anyway). They had some pretty good displays. The penguin set-up was amazing as you could get an arm's length from the penguins, and glass walls meant you could watch them dive in and jump out of the water; they also went to their outside area for a walk in line. The tigers were really lively - one was prowling and playing with it's food like a kitten. (Unlike at Australian zoos where they are sleeping in the heat!) There was also a great gorilla exhibit, with a couple off gorilla lazing around and stretching right next to the glass. No bears though - hibernating season. From the zoo, we just headed to the airport to have an early dinner before heading home. The flight was okay, but none of the kids slept so were extremely tired and passed out pretty much as soon as we put them in the car! A great holiday, but it's always nice to come home - holidays aren't very relaxing at times with 3 kids!
It's been a quiet couple of weeks since then. Mostly the usual - school, playdates, playgroup, drinks with friends. Hubby did sneak in a day of skiing at Mont Tremblant last weekend, although conditions were not great thanks to rain the day before. We had planned to go to a sugar shack last Sunday (it's maple syrup season again) but there was 15cms of snow early in the morning and we decided the roads to the shack were unlikely to be in good shape. Luckily it was perfect snowman snow, so we played outside instead. We made it to the sugar shack today instead, and I've barely eaten after having a brunch of bacon, eggs, sausages and lots of pancakes! Now we are just waiting for the snow to melt - although spring officially arrived over 2 weeks ago we are still living in a world of snow. Warmer days and rain are forecast for this week so fingers crossed it will feel like spring soon!
