A day of wrong turns but good company.

It was a gorgeous morning. We had a big day planned to meet friends and picnic and visit the Butterfly Park that we were both looking forward to.

But the morning was just so lovely we thought that we would head out for a quick walk before the lunch picnic. I had asked My Man if he could continue along a path that I often run to see where it goes to, since I was looking for a circular route. This morning we decided to QUICKLY check it out. We left at 08h45.

After about 2 hours we realised that we probably should have taken "Option 2" in terms of the fork in the road. However we dutifully followed the blue arrows and carried on. We crossed farmlands, and hothouses, forests and roads.... it was all very pretty.

Still thinking we knew where we were...

We ended up in a village we hadn't seen before- so I suppose that was a good thing. Then to figure out WHERE that village actually was, and how to get home from there.  At that point I said to My Man, "Hey what about that "Where Am I?" feature on the phone.  Bloody genius I tell you, cos we didn't have a cooking clue where we were... we walked to the bottom of the village and saw signposts to other villages that we had never heard of, never mind been to!

Forest and Farmlands begging to be explored...

I won't ever knock the "Where are we? " feature on a phone again!!   

We found out the name of the town and decided that probably the safest thing to do was to go back the way we came, which in theory was wonderful.... and we began the journey until we saw another forest trail and thought it was heading in the right direction. Shortcut - yay. Only to discover that it was not a short cut. We finally located a tar road that pointed us in the direction of our neighbouring village and we decided to just walk up the tar road.... it's narrow and people drive fast. There are no such thing as pavements. It was faaaar.  At some point I thought it looked familiar and got quite excited thinking that we were almost home! However, we were nowhere near where I thought we were.  I know it sounds odd - but farmland and forests can look the same!  

Villages we overlooked along the way...

As we approached the village next to ours, we saw a forest road and thought - (you guessed it!) SHORTCUT!  SO off we hurtled. We sms'd our friends telling them we were a little delayed, apologised and walked like the clappers for ages. At some point we passed a steep incline with some steps and I said to My Man, "We need to go up there, that's the direction home".  He didn't agree and we carried on going for about 20 min before I asked him to please check the phone again. I am seldom right when it comes to directions, so I am going to milk this - I WAS RIGHT! We were now walking ALL THE WAY BACK from where we had just come up the tar road, but going back via the forest. Eish. So turn around we did, headed up and over the stairs and suddenly we were on familiar territory at last. It still took about 40 min to get home from there though. 

We walked for 4.5 hours non stop briskly from start to finish. We were tired... and we are both fairly fit. Up hills - literally and down, can be quite tiring.

The Looonngggg Walk Home

I am glad we are both adventurous. Neither of us were in the slightest bit concerned about not knowing where we were, but we were both completely freaked out about being late for the lunch!  

I knew we were tired when My Man said to me at one point... "Just stop quick there is something on the back of your leg," so I stopped and he flicked something and I asked what it was. He said a horsefly or something. I asked "How do you know it was a horsefly?" and he said "It said Neigh man when I swatted it".  We usually get very silly when we are tired.  

Anyway - we made it to the picnic. We were just over an hour late, but fortunately we have gracious friends who didn't pack up and leave!

In the end we really had such a lovely day... OH! And there was a diversion going home in the car and we nearly ended up in Germany!  

It was a day of wrong turns but good company.