Ain't no Mountain High Enough

"I....... can't............ make.............. it"

"You can do it".

"Can't ....... breathe".

"One step at a time come on".

"My..... fucking....... calves........... hurt".

"Take your time"

"Farrrrrrrrrkkkkk Oooooooooo arrrrrrrr"

 

 

This is the conversation between hubby & I just 10 minutes into my climb of Mount Coolum

last Sunday morning 6am.

WHERE WE WALKED TO

October the 12th was International Earth Cache Day in the Geocaching World.

 

What the hell is an Earth Cache I hear you warble?

The excellent video explains everything
 

You don't have to actually FIND anything to get an Earth Cache... you just have to go to a specific location... sometimes you have to email the person who created the cache with answers to questions about the location & take a photo of yourself at the location. 
Earth Caches are usually fantastic amazing geological locations. 
Unfortunately we did not have the time or the funds to go to The Blue Lagoon in Iceland or Machu Picchu Fault Line or "Devils Kitchen Sinkhole" in Arizona so we settled on climbing to the summit of MOUNT COOLUM on the Sunshine Coast.

The information we got about the walk was that it would take approx. 1 hour up & 1 hour down.  What I didn't realise was that it isn't a BUSH walk (it is in the blazing sun) and there are 50 million fucking steep rock steps to walk up.

Anyone would think we were about to hike across the Andes with Bear Grylls with the prep that we did.
I got some you-beaut Merrell hiking boots and Mick bought some hiking poles. We had heaps of water, frozen oranges, coconut water, trail mix and granola bars.
Dammit, if the Martins are going to do something, by God, we are going to do it one THOUSAND % and leave NOTHING to chance.

10 minutes into our climb up the 50 million step rock steps my wonky brain made an executive decision that shortness of breath, nausea, sweating & muscle pain meant that I MUST be having a PANIC ATTACK!  So I then got dizzy, felt like I was going to projectile vomit over the lush scenery and I became very anxious and shaky.

Luckily, I have a very patient husband who instructed me that we were not on any time limit & to just stop whenever I want and concentrate on my breathing.

After about 5 minutes I convinced my brain that I was NOT going to die and that my body was simply doing something very foreign  ...... EXERCISE.

 

 

I continued. I focused on just putting one foot after the other and regulating my breathing.
Surprisingly, after only about another 5 minutes we met with some young whipper snappers coming back down who told us we were only a couple of minutes from the summit!

Sure enough, the final 5-10 minutes were quite easy and we stepped out onto the summit.

GASP!

THE VIEW WAS INCREDIBLE. A 360 degree view of the Sunshine Coast. AMAZING.

We sat (I plonked) down on one of the beautiful smooth grey/white rocks (called rhyolite) and took it all in.

It was so lovely. There was a slight cool breeze and everybody who was up there was very quiet, just absorbing the beauty.  I guzzled my coconut water and tried to focus on muffling my rasping breath.  I closed my eyes and just focused on the sunlight on my face & the wind on my skin and the fact that I had DONE IT!

The walk down was made MUCH easier with the use of a hiking pole to take some of the weight off my crunchy knees.  It actually only took about 35 minutes to walk up the mountain (including my breaks every 5 steps to swear & hyperventilate) and only about 15 minutes to get back down.

Would I walk up it again?  Definitely.  Next time I would go for about a 15 minute walk beforehand to warm up the ole glutes & quads though.

It was a bit of an exercise personal achievement for myself and it has inspired me to do more 'outdoorsy' exercise challenges.

Geocaching is NOT a fashion contest

 

AND I got a new souveniour on my geocaching page! 

BOOYARRRR!!!

xoxoxoxoxxox