#casuallyclimbingavolcano

4:30am the alarm buzzed us awake. Grainne looked like she’d stepped out of a fitness magazine looking far too energetic in her sports clothes while I teamed my elephant beach shorts with a hoodie and raincoat. It was too late to drop out now and head off back to sleep! I’d have to get up and climb the volcano!

Zombified, I crunched my Weetabix and toast and then waited out in the cold for the bus. The stars and moon were still out which for some reason surprised me. Apparently, space isn’t my speciality subject. We found more half dead looking waterproofed humans on the minibus. Annoyingly we were transferred to another bus, and I had to sit next to a smelly guy who fidgeted the entire time with his bags making it impossible to sleep!

We watched the sun rise as we approached the volcano and stepped out into the fresh air. The start of the track was like hiking through Mordor. The rocks were black and the path was just dried mud with a sprinkling of gravel. It was completely unspoilt by humans, just a beaten track to guide us along. Grainne and Phil powered ahead while Marc slowed down to keep me company. He said that if I’d fallen over and hurt myself, it wouldn’t be worth the headache of

me scolding him for not being there to help me up!
The truth, as we all know it, is that I am actually just incredible and most people would pay to spend six hours with me climbing a volcano. $65 in fact! #shouldhavegotanuber

I was pretty sure that I would spend the majority of the day complaining about my feet, knees, muscles, the weather, being cold, being hot, the hills, my lungs burning and general worries of death but luckily for Marc I was usually too out of breath to vocalise any of these things and I actually really enjoyed it!

The scary part was near the top of the volcano, there are steps going up most of the side, but right at the top is just open. Add the wind and a slidey ground and you have a near death experience! Trying to find safe rocks to step on was tricky so I was glad I had my walking sticks to steady me. The air had become bitterly cold and I was glad I packed my gloves. Unfortunately, the clouds were hanging quite low so our volcanic views weren’t the best but we could still see emerald pools at the bottom!

The descent was even worse! Each step I took, I slipped. I skied down it using my sticks to steady me and lean on. Marc decided to run down it because he’d seen it on Bear Grylls! Take advise from a guy who drinks his own urine and bites the heads off snakes for fun!

I aged one hundred years as I made my way down the death slide and then we were at the bottom! The rest of the walk snaked around the beautiful national park. We weaved beside beautiful forests, rocks and streams before reaching a forest. We chatted the whole time and the time passed quickly, as we exchanged life and travel stories.

The forest felt a bit longer as we knew we were close to the finishing point but it didn’t feel like a tedious walk to the end. In fact I really enjoyed the last few km looking at the fresh water streams and mossy trees. Finally we turned a corner. 19km and 6 hours from the starting line and BAM! We were in the car park! A group of cold and tired looking hikers sat gathered under the small bus shelter while we waited for the next bus to take us home.

In the evening we had a family dinner cooked by Ranji, Dennis and helpers. The hostel had a hot tub so I had a dip in there with Sarah and Enya joined us for a chat. As we were getting in Sarah shouted, “it’s hot!” I sarcastically replied “well dur its a HOT tub!” and then dipped my feet in! “Oww! It’s bloody boiling!”
Sarah quite fairly, sarcastically quoted me back.

The dinner was amazing! Two curries complete with chapatis and rice and Marc had given me a bottle of wine as a treat for

completing the walk. After dinner we played a game of ring of fire but never actually completed it because it became too challenging to remind everyone of the rules so Ollie got his guitar out and we all had a sing song. My favourite was when Dennis sang Coldplay out of time and we all struggled to keep up with him!

My wine and lack of sleep had sent me into a second wind and I thought it would be a great idea to go out! It was Ollie’s last night with us too so we obviously had to give him a decent send off.
Just a few of us headed out into town for some drinking and dancing. A creepy girl gave me too much eye contact while we danced, so I left to find more drinks!

I would be punished for it in the morning...