On Friday we celebrated 6 years of marriage. I spent some time reflecting on the past six years, thinking of the incredible places our journey together has taken us. Last year, as our 5th anniversary approached, I was given permission to organise an overseas trip to a destination of my choosing to mark the occasion. Knowing that it might be my only chance to take my unadventurous husband on an adventure, I made plans to go trekking in Nepal, camping all the way – with several of my more adventurous friends for company!

Admitting it wasn’t exactly what he had expected, it took Bazil a while to grow used to this idea, and he was repetitious in reminding me that the trek was going to be my ‘adventure of a lifetime’, and that it probably wouldn’t be something we’d repeat in the future. So, 12 months ago as we camped under those Himalayan stars, I would never have imagined that the adventure hadn’t even begun yet. When I wake up here – in the middle of a jungle on a remote, developing island in Indonesia, I sometimes wonder how I/we got here. It’s been a wild ride – it’s had it’s challenges, but it’s also been very rewarding and we’re both glad we embraced this opportunity.

There are not a whole lot of options available when it comes to celebratory dinners here and whilst I would have been happy to share a pizza on the beach, I was impressed when I learnt that Bazil had gone above and beyond, organising a romantic dining set up on the beach. Our private beach side dining experience was complete with fancy chair covers and various other decorations, including a scattering of tropical flowers and some candles. Ok, so some of the flowers were of the plastic variety, the candles were never lit (and by ‘candles’, I may mean ‘candle’), and our dining experience was only private until a couple of little girls thought it would be fun to creep up and steal the flowers from the ground.. Having gone for a pre-dinner round of golf, we didn’t quite make it to the beach for the sunset, but the colours and rays of light that followed the sunset were stunning. Before long I was drawn away from our romantic dining set up, down onto the beach where I found myself captivated by the changing colours in the sky. After a while I turned around and noticed the unimpressed look on my dining companion’s face – apparently he hadn’t envisaged an evening of solo dining. You’d think after 6 years of marriage, he’d know not to put himself in a position where he’s required to compete with a vibrantly coloured sunset for my attention.