It’s New Year’s Day, you’re hungover and it’s really cold outside, what’s the best way to spend your day? Well, swimming in the ocean with hundreds of other idiots was pretty high on my list…

The Polar Bear Swim is a yearly ritual, it’s a 100 yard race out to a man in a row boat. Everyone comes dressed in their costumes, as Elvis, or simply with a beer box on their head for warmth. Once people get out there in the water the madness of the cold really sinks in, everyone fights to try and hang on to the side of the row boat.

Air temperature: 4° celsius
Water temperature: 3° celsius

The process of getting dry while your whole body is numb and standing on freezing sand is fun too.

Vancouver, Canada.

After a 16 hour trip from Melbourne-Auckland-Vancouver we touched down on Monday 29th of December, almost 24 hours back in time from when we left Melbourne. The temperature drop was the first thing to hit us with temps between 2 and - 4, and is still something we are adjusting to (slowly!). This was not helped by the fact we both forgot to bring gloves that weren’t huge snowboarding mitts.

Vancouver is known for its grey drizzly weather so we were pretty lucky to be welcomed to clear bluebird days with stunning views out to the surrounding snow peaked mountains the entire time we were in Van.