I can't believe it's October already! We've been so lucky with the weather over the past few days-it was really hot again today, t-shirt weather. My hair is getting lighter and I've caught the sun a bit.

We arrived at our hostel yesterday and were supposed to be here for 2 nights and then head to the HI-Castle Mountain hostel for 3 nights. We've been told by a few people that the West and the East coasts of Canada are the best places to visit so we decided to extend our stay in Banff and return to this hostel after Castle Mountain. We were getting directions from a guy at the front desk from this hostel to the other and he was assuming we had a car. When he found out we didn't he looked at us a bit gone out and said Castle Mountain is extremely difficult to get to if you don't have a car. He said the wilderness hostels are set in lovely locations but hard to get to. The closest the greyhound goes to the hostel would have still left us with roughly 6 hours walk!! Yes you did read that right! We decided we would cancel that hostel and stay those three nights here instead. Luckily we were able to do that and as soon as that was all sorted out we caught the bus (with free bus passes from the hostel) to Banff town. It's a small town and is located within the National Park so you can see lakes and mountains all around, its so lovely.

We just started walking not really knowing where we were going and ended up seeing Bow river and the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel which is the massive hotel that I really wanted to see. It was a nice scenic walk. We saw deer out and about- it's so lovely to see wildlife in their natural environment. We passed a railway and the longest train I have ever seen in my life went by. I reckon it must have taken a good 3-5 minutes to pass us!

We headed to the supermarket to pick up bits for dinner and then headed back to the hostel. It's nice, not as swish as the HI-Whistler but then I don't think any of them will be. There is a cafe, kitchen, laundry room, pub, and places to sit and chill or to sit and eat. It's a nice feeling knowing that we're spending more than a couple of nights in one place- it gives you a chance to relax.