Our other dog, Clem, did several laps back and forth. I held my phone above my head to call our other friend for rescue. I headed out first carrying one of our dogs, Happy Jesus, who was too freaked out by the whole thing to manage it alone. There was nothing for it but to swim across the inlet, fully clothed. Was this some form of hazing? Were we doomed to be bog people for the term of our natural lives? Various neighbours were dotted along the inlet, sitting on deckchairs, laughing and pointing at us as we crawled on our hands and knees (it was the only way not to sink down again). We were surrounded by mud, but it only seemed like 20 metres or so to the next sandbank.Īt this point, we also realised our private beach wasn’t so private.

When I eventually freed myself, we were all sweaty and muddy, still in fits of strange laughter. I gripped on to the mangroves for leverage. As my partner and my friend yanked hard under my arms, I managed to wriggle one leg free. Quicksand had never felt real as a concept until this moment. Or could it be the way my thighs had almost disappeared? I needed some assistance from my lighter contemporaries. Knee-deep in farting mud, flashing back to Artax the horse’s traumatic death in The NeverEnding Story.īeing the most abundantly sized in the group, I sank the fastest. You know the one, where you realise you’re actually sinking. It was then that I started to get that sinking feeling. What an adventure! I’ve never seen a beach like this before, we said to each other. The choice that turned us into bog people.īefore long, the sand became a smidge muddy. I’ll always look back on that moment and remember the choice we made. After all, our mates had commitments back in town and a long drive to get there on time.īut our friend wanted to see the pier and suggested we keep going. I think it was at this point I asked, casually, if we should turn back. We came across a sweet little rowboat up on the sand. It was great to stretch our legs and shake off the stiffness and stress of moving day. We bid her adieu and smugly set off.Īlthough it wasn’t strictly our private beach, we didn’t see another person. The other had already been for a run that morning. One of the two friends who’d come to help us settle in joined us. ‘We came across a sweet little rowboat … I think it was at this point I asked if we should turn back.’ Photograph: Angela May/Getty Images/EyeEm

Quicksand visuals sinking in quicksand