We didn't know it at the time, but this would be our last weekend away together as a couple. In my 2017 year-in-review, I wrote briefly about how we struggled; how we worked hard to maintain our love and our friendship after months of bitterness that had been making its way into the smallest spaces of our relationship for what may have been the last 2-3 years.

From early December, already a lifetime ago. We took our new friend Rob to Kootenay National Park with our friends' dog, Hobbit. The four of us chased winter across the British Columbia border, the thaws in Banff & Canmore leaving everything bare of snow.

At the start of October, Martin's mother, uncle and brother visited us and the Rockies. Apart from showing them some of my favourite hikes around Banff & Canmore, we were lucky enough to join them up north in Jasper for a few days.

Photos from when my brother & sister visited me during my first year in Canada.

It's going to be hard for me to put into words the depth of my love for the mountains. The unexplained affinity I have for these tall piles of ancient rock and how it is that I'm drawn to them in the first place, as a woman born in an archipelago of 7,000 islands who spent her entire life in countries surrounded by the ocean (amongst zero mountains).

Every week in summer had me asking the same question: “which trail should I try this weekend?”. Cue messaging all my friends to see who was free to join, and behold, a plan would emerge. Tent Ridge in Kananaskis Country will forever remain one of the best hikes I've ever done.

Summer brought us a string of visitors from Australia; one of whom was my dear friend Annie. An incredibly talented photographer, I'd been quietly following Annie's work since she was 16, and even then she was blowing my mind.

The week before I left for my trip to the Indian Ocean for LUX* Resorts (more on that soon) was an...interesting one. We moved from our house, our first home in Canmore where we made many a great friend, to a condo deeper into the forests and mountains, further from town, but closer to the wild and the wildlife.

I wasn't always an outdoorswoman. It honestly wasn't until I started yoga that my relationship to that which I used to avoid changed—rather than judging myself harshly for not being able to break a “bad” habit, I began to observe the discord at an arm's length, and approach it with a process of enquiry.

An extension of our epic winter roadtrip story, here's a dedicated photo story from Maligne Canyon, Jasper National Park. We decided to visit Maligne after winter highway closures changed our plans while we were on the road to Canmore, and we had absolutely no regrets.

It's been three weeks since our first Canadian roadtrip and our journey from Vancouver. Even crazier still, it's been almost 3 exact months since we left Australia. The day-to-day looks and feels and smells so different, but better yet, it feels like home. Everything about it sits right with us.

I count myself extremely lucky to have come across people in my short life that I've instantly connected with. Megan is one of those people.

The sound of white. A quick (lest we lose our extremities) adventure down the park to enjoy our Vancouver neighbourhood blanketed in snow—we got 6 days in a row of snowfall, which is unheard of in Vancouver.

This is definitely one of my favourite experiences in Vancouver to date: backcountry hiking in Cypress Mountain. Martin, my cousin Julien and I had made a plan to visit Cypress after a week of good weather and our trip to Grouse. Unfortunately at the last minute Martin came down with a cold after weeks of us feeling rundown and exhausted, so Julien and I went alone.

From a grey and rainy day, two weeks ago at Capilano Suspension Bridge. It was beautiful being amongst the treetops, although I will admit the main bridge was sometimes too crowded for my liking.

Vancouver welcomed us with day-after-day-after-day of rain in our first week here (just standard west coast life I guess). Just as I thought it would never end, on the Friday of that week we were gifted with a beautifully sunny day to break up the grey.