Go ahead and laugh...

This weekend was very interesting to say the least. Let me start with Saturday. Clare, Denise and I went out to Manly Beach and had the afternoon to lay in the sun and enjoy the surfers. The weather was absolutely beautiful and really warm for a change! I can tell its trying to get to summer, but for every warm day we have is another cold one. That night we went to church and then had plans to join the young people in the church in Guess who's coming to dinner? The idea is for hosts to have 5-10 people over to their home, cook dinner and meet new people. We were both excited to have the opportunity to get to know some new people from church, so we were in good spirits arriving at the house. After we got there, the host made a very brief mention that the main meal would be Duck. Yes, Duck. For those that know me, I barely eat regular meat and truly had made the decision that there is no reason to ever try duck in the future. I started (silently) praying that this duck would be cooked in a way that I would be able to get some of it down. So, we started the meal, and the first coarse was pork pot stickers. They weren't my favorite but I was able to handle them. As they took my plate away, I'm sipping on some wine, preparing myself for what is to come. They brought out the main coarse and it was duck that was in a cold, noodle base. Praise the Lord it wasn't on bone, I was able to pretend to eat some of it before calling it quits. Every other person literally cleaned their place, except for Clare. She didn't like it either. We did make new friends and it was a lot of fun, but I went home hungry and slightly sick. I guess that can be my new thing for the day. Yuck!

So on Sunday we had signed up for the 7 Bridges walk. I will briefly mention that this morning I almost passed out because the largest spider I have seen to date was on my jacket that I put on before we left. All my energy went into getting my jacket off as soon as I possibly could and killing that thing. Now, I have made my peace with the hundreds of daddy long legged spiders that live with me. I really have no choice, but his one was thick, black, had fur and I think some teeth. Clare would even say, it was not a normal one and was bigger than necessary. That was how my morning started.

This was the registration booth where we got our passport that we filled with stamps at all of the bridges we crossed. This walk was 15 miles total and so we got started since we had a pretty big day ahead of us.


First bridge and we were feeling great! Notice the clouds though that are slowly starting to roll in.

We had made it to the third bridge and at this point the rain is beginning to come down a little hard. We decided to stop for a few minutes to see if it would calm, but it never did. This pictures shows us when we were still dry compared to what was ahead of us. We were slightly sad, but still hopeful that the weather would let up for us to continue on.

For all my AU friends - notice my sad face:)
It was about this time in our walk that I realized we were not going to be able to finish. Thunder and lighting is not fun to walk in. The problem was that at this point of the walk, we were between bridges, towns and bus stations. We had walked probably 5 miles already and we were in the middle of the course. Notice the white shirt... I know I wasn't prepared.

I don't think I can give you a picture of what the next 3 hours held for us. We walked in the pouring down rain, pouring, from 10:30 until 1:30. I am not joking. It was the hardest rain fall I think I've ever experienced. The roads were incredibly flooded and washouts were all over. By the time we found a bus to take us home, we had walked 7 miles. Defeated we hopped on the bus that would take us back to where our car was located, but we got off too soon so we had another 1.5 miles to the car. I couldn't take any pictures after the rain really started but caught a quick glimpse when we took a mini break under a bridge. I will never forget this day and now that I'm sitting here all warm, can say it was pretty funny. However, I never want to do it again.