Travel


Girls Weekend on Pender Island


August 23, 2018

The festival of 50 continued with a relaxing and fun weekend away with my gorgeous Vancouver girlfriends!  We decided to head out to the beautiful Gulf Islands which are off the coast of Vancouver between the mainland and Vancouver Island.  There are so many beautiful islands to visit here in British Columbia but as our request was for somewhere that we could go for just the weekend with a spa and accomodation of 8 of us we found the perfect place was Poets Cove on Pender Island.

We caught an early morning ferry from Tswassen which is 40 minutes from downtown Vancouver and after a quick ferry change at one of the other outlying islands we arrived on Pender 90 minutes later.  The Gulf Islands are scarcely populated and have beautiful countryside so it really does feel like you are escaping thing city.  

Once we arrived at Poets Cove we had a quick lunch before it was time for us all to hit the spa for the afternoon where we enjoyed facials, massages and a soak in the hot tub!  Bliss.

We had rented two, 2 bedroom villas for the night so we had loads of room to spread out.  On day 2 we took off for a short hike after breakfast and then it was back to relax for lunch before heading back to our afternoon ferry back to the mainland!  Such a lovely escape with my gorgeous girlfriends!

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New York City for my big birthday


August 21, 2018

In April I celebrated a big milestone birthday and I had always said that for my 50th I wanted to go to New York and as luck would have it NYC is a lot closer when you are living in Vancouver!  We were lucky enough to visit NYC with the girls last July so this trip was just for Mr A and I!

We stayed at the Public Hotel in Soho which was fabulous.  Rooms are not big but that did not matter when there was just 2 of us.  We ate at The Butchers Daughter and Bukkadan, visited roof top bars, went to see Hamilton on Broadway and walked for kilometres and kilometres just absorbing the city in once more.

As always so many photos so here are my favourites!

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Spring Break in Hawaii


August 4, 2018

We were keen for some warmth and sunshine for our annual March Spring break so we headed to Hawaii for some relaxation and down time!  The first few days turned out to be a little rainy and cool but after that the sun came out and gave us exactly what we were looking for!  I am not usually a big beach swimmer but I must say the temperature of the water on Waikiki Beach was pretty amazing!  Sadly I only realised this on the last few days!  

We stayed at the beautiful Moana Surfrider right in the middle of Waikiki – definitely amongst all the action so if you are looking for seclusion and quite this is not the place for you!  

During our 10 day stay we hired a car for a day and took a drive around the beautiful island, stopping for coconut shrimp and shaved ice and visited the famous surf beaches of the north shore!  We also took a great tour to Pearl Harbour to learn the history of the very famous bombing of this area during world war 2.

Enjoy our photos from a fun 10 days away!

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Whistler Weekends


May 24, 2018

We have completed embraced the skiing life while living here in Canada and while I am still very much a basic green run skier (aka the easiest slope you can find!!) we have had the opportunity to visit and ski in Whistler on three different weekends over the winter.  We also were able to catch up with many Aussie visitors during our weekends in the snow which was loads of fun!  

The conditions have been completely different every weekend – from so much snow we didn’t know what to do with it to beautiful blue skies and icy slopes!  No matter what the conditions though being outside in the fresh air getting some exercise is just the best way to spend your days!

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A White Christmas in SIlverstar


May 14, 2018

We celebrated our first Christmas in Canada at the beautiful ski resort of Silverstar which is located around 400 km east of Vancouver.  It really was a magical place to spend our first white Christmas away from home and while the temperatures were FREEZING (most days it was down to -25 while we were skiing) it was one of the best holidays we have had!  This also happened to be our first skiing holiday as we only took up skiing since moving to Canada so the experience was one to cherish!  If you are looking to travel to Canada to ski I would definitely recommend going to Silverstar where the crowds are much smaller than the more known resorts like Whistler and cost to ski is much less.  It really was ski up to most chair lifts and straight on and as you can see from the photos at the end of the post some of the runs at times I had all to myself!  We cant wait to go back again next winter break!  

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