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April is Spring in Calgary.  Spring conjures visions of bulbs popping up and waving their colourful blooms, buds sprouting on trees, blossoms and snow melting.  Not Calgary, not this year.  Here, winter is still in full swing.  The bulbs have rolled over and pulled up the covers as the snow continues to fall and fall and fall. Our Calgary friends are shaking their heads and asking, why did you come back? In a few weeks, the snow will stop falling, the bulbs will bloom, the trees will bud and the birds will return.  We will pack away our snow boots and skis, pull out our bikes and hiking boots forgetting the long, cold, snowy winter.   We will hike and cycle and swim and float and run outdoors barefoot. And when the snow first flies in October, we will run around excitedly with our arms outstretched catching the flakes in our palms!

Living in Calgary, we are really close to the majestic Rocky Mountains.  We find ourselves zipping along Highway 1 to ski at Sunshine or Lake Louise, to play in the beautiful Kananaskis Country, to ride the trails around Canmore and Banff, to hike to viewpoints overlooking lakes and glaciers and to simply breathe in the crisp, clean mountain air.  We are having some grand adventures, seeing amazing sights and experiencing some extraordinary things but we love coming home and playing in our mountain backyard. One hour and nine minutes, again and again and again ... We started thinking .... why live close to the mountains when we can live IN the mountains??  Rather than drive an hour and a bit, what if we could step out our back door and be there? Sooo, we've just bought a house in the mountain town of Canmore! Slightly more house than we intended to buy but it meets all our requirements.  There is plenty of room for guests, a huge garage for all our toys, b...

With the Easts and The Caulfields in Big White, we just had to head over for a visit and a ski!  Lovely sunny weather and some great skiing was had.  Karen, who pops up in an inordinate number of 'sister' photos, carried out her proxy sister role superbly! Boys will be boys... Sisters!  Selfie #1 Selfie #2 One of these is not like the others... A w-i-i-i-i-i-d-e tunnel Snow Angels and ... ... Charlie's Angels!

Records have been shattered - 15th coldest February, snowiest March, largest 24-hr snowfall on record, all time lows, extreme cold warnings and now a winter storm warning for tomorrow.  Ahh, it's good to be home! But the masses of snow has also meant one of the best ski seasons in years (and a normal season is pretty good here) so we packed ourselves off to Fernie.  Perfect bluebird day and snow, snow, snow.  We are not ski fit but that didn't dampen our enthusiasm.  Swoosh, woosh and only the odd kaploosh. A ski season in Canada needs to be scheduled... Mandatory selfie on the lift Snow, sun and not too cold - doesn't get much better!

Our last few days in Australia and we are back aboard Popeye, pottering around Pittwater and the beautiful waterways of the Ku-Ring Gai Chase National Park. It is wonderfully quiet and restful. We are able to pick up moorings so we do not even have that mild background anxiousness of being at anchor. Popeye feels like home, almost as if we have never left … except Monkey has gone. Our bright, happy Monkey who shared those long, rough, night watches and all the highlights and lowlights of our journey from Bali and never once dropped his oar. He has been replaced by a work of calligraphy. Poor Monkey! Monkey ... in happier times It seems only fitting that we are aboard Popeye, pouring over cruising guides and charts, planning our next sailing adventure. We will be back to AUS in September to deliver her from Hamilton Island to Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club in Pittwater – a voyage of 800nm down the east coast. In the meantime, we are heading back to Calgary, partying wit...

Horror on the Highway As is does, time rolled on and once again, we are heading towards Tullamarine Airport. Mum kindly offered us a lift so we piled her car full of our suitcases and bags and started off.  With me at the wheel in moderate to heavy traffic we were in the middle lane of the Nepean Highway at about Gardenvale, a flicker of movement caught my eye.  To my arachnophobic horror one long hairy leg, then another and another danced out from the door jam until the whole hand-sized huntsman spider began his waltz across the dashboard.  Obviously my first reaction was to scream, slam on the brakes and leap out of the car BUT I remained calm.  With a heart rate close to cardiac arrest, I flicked on the blinker, safely changed lanes, turned onto the service road then felt at liberty to scream and leap out of the car! Sean, most manfully, removed the spider from the car and only once I saw him scurrying around on the nature strip did I feel it was safe to ...

SOLD! I bought 45 Woods Street back in 2002.   Angus was an infant.   Today he is a strapping lad of sixteen.   We decided to sell for a number of reasons including changes to the Australian tax laws and our desire to buy a house in Canmore so we can live in the mountains rather than just play there!   Since living in Canada, Woods Street has been rented so was in need of some spit and polish.   The tenants vacated prior to Christmas so we had some time to get her ship-shape and presented to her very best.   It was most convenient if we moved in whilst we carried out the work but our lack of furniture was a small conundrum. This was solved by the brilliance of Gabby who over dinner and a few wines remembered that Mark and Monica were selling their house, had decluttered and as a result had a garage filled with furniture.   Remarkably, the furniture fitted the colour and style of our house perfectly.   So, we hire a removal van, loaded...

One of the joys of being back in Melbourne is getting out on our bikes and exploring.  We have ridden sections of The Capital City Trail but never the whole thing.  So under a gorgeous blue sky, we set off.  The trail is not very well signed so we had a couple of wrong turns.  Not all bad when we ended up on the Moonee Ponds Trail and popped in to visit Tamie and Vince!  It was particularly confusing around railway stations and we had a taste of cycle-cross having to carry our bikes up a walking track with stairs in Yarra Bend Park but we found our way back each time and conquered the full circuit!  Easy and flat with urban riding under freeways, meanders along the river and through wild parks with the illusion of wilderness. A fabulous ride.  Well done Melbourne! Our 65km ride - click for more info about the route

The Grayman Almost as shocking as it would be him taking up snowboarding, Dad has gone to the dark side and bought a stink boat!  Who would have ever imagined this? After more than three decades, three sailboats, an uncountable number of Bass Strait crossings and multiple epic return cruises between Flinders and Cairns, he has been seduced by the throb of a 225HP outboard. As children, we were brainwashed to be sailors.  From the little Quickcat, Arafura and Hobie catamarans we sailed off the beach to the grand adventures aboard Western Rambler (Brolga 33), Nova Vida (Duncanson 37) and Francis (Morgan 43), we could always look up and see a mast and sail.  Even our near-death experiences; in particular the memorable Christmas Cruise of 1988 in a Bass Strait squall, 70kn winds and towering seas; was under sail. In what we can only imagine to be an old age crisis, the whole axis of our world has shifted and we now have a power boating father.  Our powe...