Arrmaitee and Daylyn's psycho hiking adventure

Hi all,

I just had to tell you this short story. So daylyn and I finally arrived in Sydney, Australia on Wednesday, and we were advised multiple times that we HAD to go see the Blue Mountains. Well, Daylyn was thinking that a good sightseeing tour would suffice but of course I decided that we needed to book the three hour hiking adventure in the Grand Canyon.

Well, Friday rolls along and it is pouring rain (as in really pouring), but we decided to go hiking anyway. After all, it is an adventure, right? So we take this chartered bus to the Grand Canyon with a bitchy British shrew and a Cirque Du Soleil escapee, and the British shrew keeps telling me that I CAN'T go hiking with my Burberry umbrella. Well, this bloody American was not going to be told what to do by that hussie, so of course I decided to forego my poncho for the folding umbrella.

Then we started the hike. The beginning of the hike was deceptively easy. It was flat. Too flat. Way too flat. So Daylyn and I didn't worry too much that it was pouring. Then we arrived at the cliff... I mean stairs.

The bloody hike was into the Blue Mountain rain forest, only it was pouring all over the steps and we needed to climb down well over 1000 feet to get to the main part of the trail. That's when I found out that Daylyn is afraid of walking down slippery surfaces. Bloody hell!

So, to make a long story short, I ended up hiking backward (with my umbrella) trying to get Daylyn down the mountain, with the shrew hauling ass up ahead and making her oh so witty and insightful commentary. Uggggh!

But wait, there's more. After a few thousand wet stairs, about 20 slip and fall incidents and a few hundred waterfalls running across the hiking trail, we find out that we have to cross a flowing river.

At this point Daylyn just wanted to be voted off the Island, and I was about ready to crack. After all, did I REALLY want to walk across a flowing river? Umm... no. But we crossed it anyway and then found out that there were two more freezing cold rivers for us to cross (and we do mean cross by going into three feet of rapidly flowing water).

Well, after river three, the tour guide informs us that river four is uncrossable, so we have to go back! What the fuck?!!! Daylyn and I literally just started laughing. I mean... we were 80% through with the bloody hike! And now we had to go BACK through the rivers wild, and back up all those bloody stairs in the rain with Daylyn gasping for breath and me freezing.

So what good came of this? Well, I got a first hand look at the British shrew tumbling into a river, and neither Daylyn nor I got an pneumonia, and that was really good enough for me (especially since I was the first American label whore to brave the bush tour with a designer umbrella). And... er... the Blue Mountains were exquisitely beautiful.

Does anyone have an Advil... or Vitamin C?