Hi!

Sorry I've been so long updating, it's been a pretty hectic week and I haven't had internet access for most of it. So there's a lot to fill you in on!

We left Vancouver after picking up our rental card (He is called Thor and is HUGE!) We got the ferry to Vancouver island and found a really nice hostel in Victoria. The next day we explored Victoria. WE got a booklet called 'be a tourist in your own town' which was designed to get all the locals out to the attractions by making them very cheap or free, so that was brilliant! We did a mini boat ride round the port, saw the miniture model museum, had a great bus tour of the local area and went into an aquarium built into the bay with all the plants/animals in their natural habitat. All of which would have cost us loads but for the booket! We even got a cheap lunch. In the afternoon we went round a local butterfly park, it was pretty good and we saw the largest moth in the world!

And then the adventure really started...

We headed off that evening with the intention of getting to Tofino to stay the night. However, the roads left a lot to be desired (most being logging roads), there were no signposts and we didn't have a decent, detailed map of the area. So we ended up staying in a random tiny town in the middle of the island called Nitinat! We had to sleep in the car because there was nowhere to stay...so that was fun! It made us very grateful for our HUGE Thor. Then the next day we drove all of 100m before realising that the previous nights driving had left us with a flat tyre. This could have been dealt with relatively easily (although none of us had ever changed a tyre before, we were willing to give it a go!) until SOMEONE (no names :p ) managed to lock the keys in the car! We walked back up to town, but aparently the lock guy was out fishing and the tyre man was out for the day, we rang our car rental company but they couldn't help us because we didn't have an address for where we were. Luckly an amazing man called Dartwin came along, unlocked the car with a combination of leavers and twigs, and changed the tyre! Amazing man! So we then headed off to a slightly bigger town, got a new tyre and after a night in Nanimo got the ferry back to Vancouver.

So that adventure over with, we headed off to Whistler and had a quick look round at the ski runs, olympic stuff, but most was cordened off so we continued to Jasper.

Jasper is lovely, and there's actually tonnes to do for people who don't ski or can't aford it (we being both!). The first night here we just cooked tea and went to the hostel's bonfire where we cooked marshmallows and chatted to the other people staying here. However it was minus 14 degrees so we didn't stay out too late!

Yesterday we hired cross country skis and went for a ski along a beautiful track by a frozen lake, surrounded by mountains. It was brilliant fun, although definately an aquired skill! We all fell over numerous times but there were no serious injuries.

Today we decided to do a bit of treking but because of the ice and snow everywhere we had to hire cleats to help us along. We trekked along the side of a gorge called Maligne Canyon which is over 50m deep in places, and the back up the centre as the river and waterfalls have cmpletely frozen. I've never seen a frozen waterfall befre and they're amazingly beautiful! This afternoon we toboggoned down a run next to the hosel on a matress (a common passtime here!), which was so much fun! We also went for a walk around pyramid lake, another frozen lake (they all are round here atm!) but then it started to snow fairly heavily so we headed back to the hostel.

The plan is now to head towards Banff, spend a few days there before flying out in a few days time.

So yup, I'm alive and well, having a brilliant time! Canada is beautiful. I'll try to upload some pictures soonish when I have a better internet connection.