Our last day in Banff was bittersweet. Although we could have stayed forever, the weather is being so unpredictable and wavering, and we’ve seen all we wanted to see – so we were ready to go “home”. Although “home” just now is still in Canada. It almost felt like Scotland was just a puzzle piece now, and that our holiday was only in Banff, and Vancouver is where we will return to normality… BUT, we still have a full week left of not having to be at work and able to just do what we want to do.

We got up early again and I had some pretty cool roommates last night who had good chat. One girl from Germany and another from Virginia…They chatted to me from the second they walked in the room. It was the first people I really got to know in my room. Not that you see much of your roommates but we were both arriving/leaving at the same time so it worked out pretty well.

I met Ali for breakfast and we had some toast with pb&j and said goodbye to our hostel. Literally. We drove to Banff and did some shopping; we got some souvenirs for back home; we bought some clothes in Billabong because they are so much cheaper over here. We got 5 bits of clothing for $160 which is equivalent to £80. Now, that might seem a lot but it is good quality.

Ali browsed around all the ‘outdoorsy’ shops for as long as he needed to and then we got some directions to where we wanted to go and went on our way.

We had a few hours to kill before we needed to bring the rental car back to the airport so we did a 5k hike round Grassi Lakes. I’d been recommended to go here by a family friend and the photos on google looked incredible.

And the colours were just as we were told. I could not believe my eyes! The hike up was so incredibly hard… it was all uphill, up rocks and stairs for about 2.5k and we realised yet again how unfit we are but it was so entirely worth it.

 

 

 

 

Honestly, if you want to go somewhere to recharge, clear your head and remember how beautiful this planet is, go to Banff. You will not be disappointed. Even with the crazy weather, thick smoke, downpour of rain, the views are still spectacular. Nothing will hold you back.

 

We took the easy route back down and talked about  all the adjectives we don’t like being described as including ‘goofy’, ‘random’, and ‘bubbly’. Intellectual adult conversations.

Then we had a drive to the airport. We dropped the car off around 3.30 and our plane wasn’t for another 4 hours. I ran to the bathroom and when I came back, Ali had got us on standby for a flight at 4.20!!! This guy is crazy. He asks questions and he gets crazy things happening. I was kind of looking forward to chilling in the airport with wifi for the first time in forever and a good book but when we had been back in Vancouver for a few hours, looked at the clock and realised we’d just be boarding our flight at this point, I was thankful.

The flight hit quite a bit of turbulence which I absolutely hated but the movie ‘Inside Out’ was on the DVD player so I was pretty entertained.

Margaret met us at the airport and it just felt so homely and relaxed. Returning from a holiday within a holiday makes it feel like we’ve been in Canada forever, now. I do some amount of traveling but just short stints – 10 days max. To be somewhere for 3 weeks is a really long time but I would love to extend it so I could just slowly savour each moment rather than bash every day on the head.

But we have loved every moment.

We got home and just told Margaret & Wayne about our trip, had some ribs and chilled out. It was just such a relief to be somewhere warm, safe, cosy and know that the next few days we wouldn’t be doing anything where we would have to sign release waivers that stated if we got injured or died in this activity, it would be our fault.