Well it seemed like a good idea at the time.....

Now one of the perks of growing up way the hell down the bottom of the planet, is that New Zealand has some wonderful and unique native flora and fauna. Tracks and trails world renowned for their beauty and splendour....(and ability to make the occasional hiker disappear without a trace) are the stuff of legend the world over. It's rather a pretty place.

Don't get me wrong, my new home of Australia is chock full of wildlife treats as well, but unfortunately some of them try to kill you.....and very efficiently at that. This has made me a tad wary of exploring even the local park here let alone a hiking trail and does lend to me pining at times for the lush shrubbery and reassuring snakelessness of my native land.

At this point I would like to say that I have blissful memories of happily bouncing about in the bush, bonding with nature and being a prime example of fitness and health.

I would like to say this...but I can't

The most recent memory I do have is loosely summarized in the following and if you're looking for a motivational health piece, I can assure you, this isn't it.

Once upon a hiking trail....

My friend and I decided one morning, in the interests of health and well-being, to go and have a wee stroll through some of the local native wildlife (well the flora part of it - it's a bit hard to stroll through a New Zealand wood pigeon).

So we set off with a great deal of gusto to the local hiking track. Drink bottle in hand and sensible shoes afoot, we commenced our journey along the trail and felt right proud to be active and social and all that other shit we get told we should be on a regular basis.

This track, being a popular one, had several options available including going the whole nine kilometres, or settling for the more respectable three and a half kilometre loop track.

In the interests of still being able to walk the next day, we chose the latter.

Which turned out to be a very smart idea because while New Zealand forest is quite breathtaking, very little of it is parked anywhere bloody flat. About 10 minutes into the venture I was rudely reminded of how much my fitness has deteriorated in the last year.

My friend, also not the fittest, was faring little better. "Time for a stop I feel" she huffed, as we neared the first lookout. I thought this was a sterling idea and promptly took to briskly leaning against a tree.

Once our breath had stopped exiting our bodies at quite such a frantic rate of knots, and we had analysed the surrounding greenery and creatures therein for way longer than was necessary, we continued.

After what seemed like hours, but was possibly only another 10 minutes we reached the path to the first lookout point. This was where I encountered something that had been all but a foreign concept up until that point: downhill. This would have been just peachy if my legs wanted to cooperate. I think they had the climbing wobbles....sort of like speed wobbles but...slower. "Tell you what..." I said to my mate, "...how about you pop down and have a little looksee and I'll supervise from up here"  I kinda figured that this was a better option than risking snowballing my unfit ass down a set of very pointy steps.

Now supervising is hard work, so I sat down. I sat down again too when we hauled ourselves back to the track proper. And I had never appreciated sitting down quite so much in my life.

Another thing I appreciated was the apple I brought. Only this was no ordinary apple; by the time I got my hands it, it had morphed into ambrosia. I savoured every bite of it and probably took twice as long as necessary to eat it due to putting off the heavy duty act that would need to follow it, that of standing up.

But it was while we were lunching on the fruit of the heavens that we saw the most interesting creatures of the day. Now I am not talking about our furred or feathered friends here...no no no; these creatures were of the humanoid persuasion. Not only were they long and lean, but they had an unusual gait. I think it's called 'running'

My friend and I looked at each other: "They were running!" we spluttered in unison. 

I wasn't impressed. Here I was struggling to get enough oxygen when completing the most basic of human forward motion, while these clowns were leaping up the slopes like a herd of demented gazelle. 

Pfft, that'll be enough of that sort of carry on, I thought. It was time to complete this journey so we could both go home and die quietly.

The second half of the quest, at least, involved mostly gentle downhill slopes and a fluttering of birdlife...or maybe that was the angels coming to take me away because I'd died back at the previous corner...I wasn't entirely sure.

Either way we made it safely back to my friend's mercifully air-conditioned vehicle. I finally concluded that I must not have departed this mortal coil due to the fact that my arse was starting to hurt like a bitch and there was foreign matter in my hair...possibly from the aforementioned fluttering entities.

"Well that was a success" my friend chirped happily "Didn't we do well?"

I wanted to strike her with my drink bottle

"To still be breathing? Yes."

"Oh it wasn't that bad once we got into it...I reckon we could make the whole distance next time...the nine kilometres!"

......

Such a shame I moved to Australia before that could happen....I'm truly devastated