A Birthday

Ah, I had a wicked Birthday! It happened to be our last day in the Daintree, so Tina had very kindly given us the day off and offered to drive us to and pick us up from a waterfall walk. This sounded just like Birthday material, so we readily agreed. 

However, on the way there we started to realise we may have bitten off more than we could chew when all of her sentences started with things like…

“In the case of an emergency…”, “No I wouldn’t take your cameras as you don’t want them to get wet…”, “So our contingency plan if one of you gets injured is…”, “Lots of my Wwoofers haven’t made it all the way…”, “We need to start early in case we need to send people in to rescue you…”, “When the water gets as high as your armpits…”

…you get the picture. We got scared.

So it turns out that this walk was a proper trek up a river. And by that I mean IN the river. I wore flipflops (of course), but this was a big mistake as we quickly realised this was not going to be an easy walk as it’s the end of rainy season and this river was HIGH. It took us 3 hours of wading, clambering, swimming (yes SWIMMING!) and climbing upriver to reach the waterfall, by which time I’d fallen over entirely about 4 times, stubbed my toe and knocked the end of it off on a rock, grazed my thigh, and barbed my entire hand on a ‘lawyer vine’ whilst plummeting into a plunge pool. Needless to say we were pretty wiped out by the time we got there but my god it was worth it. One of the most impressive waterfalls I’ve ever seen (and certainly one of the highest), and we didn’t pass a soul the entire walk which just served to enhance our feeling of achievement (and nerves). I actually whooped with joy when we finally turned a corner and caught our first glimpse of the waterfall.

So a 6 hour round trip later and we made it back to our pick up point. It must have been one of the most unbelievably beautiful walks I’ve ever been on. No photo evidence as we couldn’t take cameras, so I've stolen one off the internet (above) to give you an idea, Just picture small river engulfed by rainforest, a kind of Tarzan heaven with dangling vines, interspersed with aqua blue water holes, leading up to crazy rapids and giant boulders. Simply breath-taking. And all ours!

The only bad thing about my birthday was that I didn’t get to share it with this incredible lady. 

It’s always bitter sweet when I can’t be with her, and even more so when she’s on the other side of the world, and when I know she has to work two night shifts.

I have never ever known anyone with as much passion, motivation, dedication and compassion as my Clairey. She is an incredible doctor who blows me away with her ability to cope with such a physically and emotionally demanding job so spectacularly. I have often had a stressful day at work and taken a moment to think how insignificant my stress must be compared to the kind of pressure and stress and overwhelming responsibility she has to cope with on a day to day basis, and that’s even before I mention the crazy hours and mental shifts she has to endure.  

I know I’m not just being biased. Everyone I have ever met who has worked with her or been treated by her cannot sing her praises enough. Mum once popped in to see her at work and while she was there the mum of an ex-patient spotted her and made a bee-line for her, only to burst into tears and thank her profusely for all she had done. And I’m 98% sure this was not even a set-up ;)

The children of Bristol are lucky to have her watching over them, and I am privileged and lucky enough to call her my twin and best friend. Happiest of happy birthdays my gorgeous Clairey. 29 years worth of awesomeness all wrapped up in one big wonderful bundle of INCREDIBLE. 

(I'm the fat one who looks like a boy. Claire is the incredibly cute one who looks like an elf)