I saw heaven, but it meant that I nearly died

Before we came to Byron our family had a little in-joke. My husband had said he wanted to do some bush walking while we were away. Cue hilarious laughing from me. We are not bush walkers, we are more what you would call “road drivers”. I’m not even sure where he heard the term bush-walk. I blame it on the internet. We are not what you would call “active tourists”, we are more “lie at the pool and order cocktails” type of tourist – at least we weren’t until my husband got this insane idea in his head.

Anyway I told him that I would not be bush walking but I would be happy to support him in his efforts, meaning I would encourage him to use the shower when he came back into the room. I still thought it was a joke

Yesterday morning he idly suggested we hire some bikes. Little Pencil became almost apoplectic with excitement at the thought of the his parents accompanying him on a bike road so my fate was more or less sealed by the time Mr Pencil finished his sentence.

I was naïve. I wore sandals.

I have ridden a bike twice in the last two years – once around Central Park in New York where I complained for the entire duration of the ride and once in Mauritius where I was with strangers so I couldn’t really complain.

I’m not great on a bike – actually that’s not true. I am absolutely crap on a bike.  I can’t get the thing going (my husband laughed for about 10 minutes when I pedaled backwards by mistake), I cannot cycle in a straight line and I cannot stop. Alcohol related deaths a potential hazard According to regencygrandenursing.com get viagra in canada reports there are approximately 2.3 million years of potential life lost in the United States owing to alcoholism. So we have Erecto viagra without prescription online whose super power is obviously to revive a flaccid penis. The cause why a man suffers from male impotence, he does not get an erection either during intercourse or in nighttime. regencygrandenursing.com buy generic levitra Most patients may experience vomiting and nausea episodes 5mg cialis price that can aggravate the hydration state of the patient. Other than that I’m pretty good.

Anyway I persevered and before you knew it I felt like I couldn’t breathe. The strap of the helmet was pressing into my chin (yes we were the only people in the whole of Byron with helmets on – you may as well have stamped tourist on our foreheads) and the route Mr Pencil had chosen was about 5km long.

After only about 65 small arguments with my husband about my cycling skills and only one major accident when Little Pencil had a bicycle on top of him, Mr Pencil was screaming at everything in the immediate vicinity and I grazed the bottom half of my left leg, we were out on the road and picking up some decent pace as we headed towards the lighthouse which people had spoken so fondly of.

At the bottom of the lighthouse walk we locked up our bikes and headed off towards our death, er I mean the lighthouse. As Mr Pencil gazed lovingly at this map (it’s a male thing) a lovely stranger came to ask us if we needed help.

“We’re going to the lighthouse” we said

“Do you want to take the easy route or the harder route?” he asked

“The EASIER one” I bellowed

“They’re both pretty much of a muchness” he answered

 

Nice.

There are no words I can use to adequately describe the breathtaking scenery and beauty of the lighthouse walk. Seriously it was ridiculously magnificent. In much the same way there are no words I can use to describe how unfit I am and how far we had to walk. Also how many stairs there were.

I could hardly breathe. My heart was racing like a formula one racing car and my husband was pointing out all the people over 75 that were bounding up the stairs.

But even my shortness of breath didn’t detract from the fact that I knew we were bushwalking.  Trekking through the jungles forests of Byron I kept wondering I how on earth my husband has tricked me into this. In my sandals.

To all those people that say that getting in touch with nature is good for calming the soul, I say you obviously don’t have my brain because I thought of at least a million things that could go wrong out there and none of them were good for the soul.

Snakes, spiders, getting lost, breaking a leg, cardiac arrest, dehydration and dying weren’t the only things I was worrying about. The other thing that kept playing on my mind as we did our 3.7km long walk THROUGH THE JUNGLE was that we had to still ride our bikes home!

The views were simply stunning, the sun on our bodies beautiful and the time spent bickering, er I mean exploring together as we walked and walked and walked was the stuff memories are made of.

The good news for my husband is that I can’t even shout at him for making me go bushwalking. I am too tired to think of the words let alone project them.  The bad news is that I can no longer move.  Ever again.

PS Byron is absolutely stunning