Into The Wild, Whinging

When Amanda Blair decides to go hiking for a bit of family bonding, she soon realises that you can lead your kids to bushland, but you can’t make them walk.

- Amanda Blair

It seemed like a good idea at the time. A rare weekend when our waking hours weren’t dominated by frantic searches for mouthguards and shin pads, as the kids’ sport had been cancelled.

The weather was splendid so I thought we should go for a bushwalk. What a wonderful opportunity for family bonding.

Husband and I were most enthusiastic, being trampers from way back. In fact, as he pulled the old backpack from the cupboard and blew the dust off, he reminded me that we’d trekked every weekend from our courting days in 1997 right up until 2004, when I was pregnant with number one and a nasty case of haemorrhoids halted my enthusiasm for everything except vanilla ice-cream, daytime TV and donut pillows.