The highest, most inaccessible castle in Cyprus. Spectacular 360-degree views. A 45-minute trek from the car park to the entrance. This was where I wanted to spend my birthday – if the Land Rover didn’t fall apart on the way there.

Buffavento Castle is one of the three gothic castles on the Kyrenia (Besparmak) mountain range -and the only one we hadn’t yet visited. There’s also St Hilarion and Kantara, which we went to last year. At 3100 feet, Buffavento is the highest of the three. As you drive out of Nicosia towards Kyrenia, the mountain range looks like a solid wall. If you want to make an educated guess about where on that range St Hilarion and Buffavento are (Kantara is too far east to see from there), then look for the two most ludicrously high and knobbly outcrops of rock and you’ll have found them. St Hilarion is to the west of the mountain pass, Buffavento to the east.

On the morning of my birthday, we left our hotel in Kyrenia and headed in the direction of Buffavento. We thought driving through the village of Ozankoy would be a shortcut. Big mistake. The signs to the castle from the village took us to an old mountain pass that had been cut off by a landslide. No, head for Catalkoy instead on the main road and it will take you to the correct mountain pass in 10 minutes.

It was as Matt was doing a 20-point turn at the landslide that the Land Rover showed the first signs of being unwell. It started clunking pretty loudly every time we changed gear. We checked nothing was about to fall off and drove on as smoothly as possible. We took our minds off impending car failure by playing the game ‘Is the Castle on that Ridiculously High Knobble of Rock?’ Matt and Goobie found it entertaining for about 5 minutes. It kept me entertained the whole way.

We got to the top of the Besparmak mountain pass and saw the Buffavento Besparmak Restaurant on the left. Just opposite, on the right-hand side of the road, was the start of the 6km track that would take us along the top of the mountain to the castle car park. It was also our last opportunity to decide whether to take our chances with the broken Land Rover or turn back.

‘I can run 6km in 40 minutes. If it breaks down on the track we can call for help from the restaurant.’

We took our chances. The 15-minute journey along that track was the most terrifying 15-minutes since driving along The Road From Hell in the Akamas Peninsula. For parts of the track there is a sheer drop of hundreds of metres on one side – not even a tree to catch you if your Land Rover happened to have a steering problem, not a gear problem.

Matt and I deal with fear in different ways. I talk and Talk and TALK. He goes deathly quiet. Goobie sleeps. And that’s how we spent our 15 minutes on the Terror Track. But we made it in one piece. The Land Rover made it in a piece-and-a-half because something under the gear stick was definitely coming off.

As we rounded the mountain bends, we saw the castle looming up ahead. I laughed; I’d won the Knobbly Rock competition. The knobbly rock this castle was built on was, frankly, insane. As were we because we were about to climb up it. The castle was well-positioned as a look-out, though it made having an au-naturel wee in the car park a tad embarrassing.

From the car park we climbed for 45 minutes up steps to the gatehouse. Goobie did brilliantly, stopping at every bend when ‘My body needs a rest, Mummy.’ It was hot and mine did too. There was plenty to occupy us on the climb – counting lizards, spotting butterflies and little red flying bugs, and the view. The most incredible part of the climb was when the path crossed the narrow spine of the mountain. It made us feel exceedingly . . . intrepid.

At last we reached the gatehouse and rested in the shade. There was no ticket office -entrance, it appeared, was free. But let’s face it, after the Terror Track and the climb, we’d earned a free visit.

After our rest we explored the lower half of the castle. The lower half is the most intact and we wandered through storerooms, dormitories and various other chambers; some had cisterns beneath to collect water. Not a huge amount seems to be known about this castle. It was built in Byzantine times to defend against Arab raids. Buffavento, St Hilarion and Kantara are all visible to each other and signals were sent between them, Lord-of-the-Rings-style. Buffavento fell to King Richard the Lionheart in the 12th century and was called the ‘Chateau du Lion.’ It was later used as a prison but fell into disuse during the Venetian period in the 16th century.

‘Mummy, I need a POO!’

It would take about an hour to reach a proper toilet. Even if we could be bothered. We found a quiet nook behind a tree and, at 3000 feet, Goobie had the highest poo of his life. Did I take a photo? Of course I did.

‘Bum! I left the wipes in the car!!’

I won’t gross you out with any further details. Suffice to say, we got him clean in the end and covered the poo with a large rock.

The lower and upper sections of the castle are connected by a narrow, windy flight of stairs. Looking back on it, it was really vertiginous, but for some reason I didn’t get the Mummy-Wobbles. People with serious vertigo would find it hard though. 75 feet further up you reach the upper section, which contains ruins of various rooms and a chapel.

The most incredible thing about the upper section is the spectacular, panoramic views. Buffavento means ‘Defier of Winds’, but there was nothing defiant in the atmosphere today; the air was still and the visibility good. On one side you can see all the way across the Mesaoria Plain to Nicosia and the Troodos mountain range. We tried to spot Nicosia International Airport which we’d visited the day before. On the other side was beautiful Kyrenia and its surrounding villages. We felt, quite literally, on top of the world. The huge sky, the sunlight and the vast open space that surrounded us was exhilarating. What I would have given to have been a bird in that moment and been able to leap off the top and soar through the air.

‘I can’t think of any place I’d rather be spending my birthday right now.’ I said.

We climbed back down the castle, then took the steps down to the car. Driving back along the Terror Track wasn’t quite so terrifying as we knew what was coming. The Land Rover clanked its way back to our hotel in Kyrenia, stubbornly holding on to whatever was trying to come off.

Just two years ago I could never have imagined I’d be spending my birthday on the roof of a beautiful Mediterranean island – an island that I happen to call home. I love this place and I had the best birthday ever. I truly am blessed.