It started with us ‘popping out to Foinikas’ to get some fresh air for a couple of hours. It ended with us stuck in the arse end of nowhere about to spend the night in the car.

I’m fighting a postnatal fog. I was in it for a year after Goobie was born. I feel my normal self in the initial weeks after the birth, but by Week Six the fog begins to descend. It’s a happy fog but when I’m in it I feel unmotivated, I don’t want to exercise, I don’t want to do anything apart from cuddle and feed my baby. I think it’s caused by chronic sleep-deprivation.

I don’t want to lose a precious year in Cyprus to a postnatal fog. I think the key to avoiding this is to get out in the sunshine and move – while still cuddling and feeding the baby (a baby sling is perfect for this!). With this in mind we decided to go out for a walk and I picked the abandoned village of Foinikas as a focal point.

The ruins of Foinikas village sit on the edge of the Asprokremmos reservoir in the Paphos district. Google Maps assured us it knew the way and led us to Nikoleia village on the eastern side of the reservoir. We turned off the main road at Nikoleia, down a farm track and parked the car. The track probably is okay for vehicles, but it’s narrow, very steep and clings to the edge of a deep valley. We didn’t have the nerve to drive and since we were out for a walk, we decided to walk the rest of the way to Foinikas. Ha!

It was a picturesque walk, past a goat farm, down into a deep valley and up the other side. We haven’t explored this area of Cyprus before and it was beautiful. Miles of green, rolling hills, many with interesting rock formations.

We walked for an hour, crested a hill and looked out across the dramatic landscape below. In front of us was the dried-up bed of the Asprokremmos reservoir. The reservoir hadn’t dried up completely – sunlight reflected off a large expanse of water in the distance. Cyprus hasn’t had enough rain for the reservoir to extend this far upstream. Instead, a small river ran through the dried-up mud plain.

We spotted the ruins of Foinikas sitting dramatically on rocky outcrops halfway up the other side of the valley.

And then we realised that Google Maps is a total, bloody arsehole.

It had taken us to the wrong side of the reservoir! A river stood between us and Foinikas.

Goobie thought he’d spotted a way to cross the river, so we scooted down to the muddy bed to have a look.

The river was enticingly shallow, with islands in the middle. Goobie hopped onto one of them. Before leaving the house, Goobie and I had had a disagreement about his footwear. I thought trainers the sensible option, he thought flip flops. He was quite obnoxious arguing the point, so it was pretty satisfying watching the flip flops get stuck in the mud.

Until Goobie wrenched them out and they flew off his feet and into the river. They picked up speed as they floated downstream.

Matt took off like a rocket. He knew that if we lost them, he’d have to carry his six year-old son for an hour up two hills back to the car.

His heroics paid off and we walked up and down the river looking for a place to cross. But it was too wide and fast. We sat down for lunch and started the long walk back to the car.

Not wanting to be defeated by bollocky Google Maps, we drove to the other side of the reservoir, crossing the bridge at Old Choletria and turning first left down a little track. Matt gave me that resigned ‘Really?!’ look, reserved for when I take us off-roading.

The track seemed fine until, a couple of kilometres along, the car stopped moving. Despite its best efforts. There was a significant CLANK and Matt got out to take a look. It appeared we were stuck in the mud.

‘Is this part of our car?’ he said, holding up a massive piece of plastic that had clearly been part of our car.

‘God knows,’ I said innocently.

The plastic was shoved next to the front wheels along with loads of pebbles that Matt and Goobie collected to provide traction. We tried for 10 minutes to get the car out. Mud went everywhere, including inside the car – until I remembered to wind up the window. We cursed our decision last year not to pay €500 to have the four-wheel drive thingy reattached to the car (it had fallen off during a similar day out).

Just as we started to smell burning, there was another significant CLANK and the car bolted forward out of the mud.

Laughing hysterically, we drove on up to Foinikas village. By this point, the sun was going down and the village looked dramatic standing on the edge of the hill with the sun setting in the background.

Herc celebrated our arrival with an explosive poo that he’d spent two days working on.

Goobie and I legged it. This nappy was Daddy’s.

We’d spent three hours trying to get to Foinikas village and now we were there it felt, well, eerie in the dying light. We looked through collapsed doorways at ruined rooms overgrown with weeds. Some of the houses still had partial roofs, sagging after years of neglect. Between the ruins, a few beautiful trees stood proudly. Once they would have offered much-needed shade to the inhabitants of Foinikas.

Foinikas was a Turkish-Cypriot village. During the troubles in the 1970s, its inhabitants fled to the North, leaving the village to fall into ruin.

However some sources claim that Foinikas has a deeper history. Apparently this was the site of the administrative capital of a Knights Templar stronghold. It’s a fascinating thought – the village certainly had a mystical atmosphere in the early evening light.

It was time to go. Google Maps assured us there was a quicker route back to the motorway if we headed south out of the village, over a little bridge and up a steep hill.

The bridge looked old enough to have been built by the Knights Templar! It was also too narrow for the Land Rover to cross. We spotted another track going round it, filled with a big puddle. I was halfway through saying ‘perhaps you should drive on the verge’, when Matt ploughed the Land Rover straight through the middle of the puddle.

Where it got stuck.

We were wedged this time. And it was getting properly dark now. We were too far into the arse end of nowhere for a breakdown lorry to reach us. There was no hysterical laughter, no photo-taking. Just a panicked silence as Goobie and Matt chucked anything they could find into the puddle to provide some traction.

Herc sensed the atmosphere and started screaming, his eyes wide with fear.

I tried and tried to get the Land Rover moving, only for it to fall back into the rut it had carved into the mud. I was certain we were going to spend the night in the car, waiting for sunrise when we could see more clearly.

Then Goobie produced the poxiest-looking branch I’d ever seen and laid it in front of the car. And that did the trick. The car started moving and I nudged it gently onto the verge, trying to avoid creating another rut. It moved enough to find traction on more solid ground and, with an almighty rev, I cleared the puddle. We were out.

Matt and Goobie hopped into the car and we bombed it up the steep hill. Looking back on it, that hillside track was bloody horrific. With ruts, rocks and steep drops. But we were so relieved to be moving that we shot up it without so much as a ‘Bloody Hell!’

Once we were out of the valley, it was a short drive to the motorway. It was way past dinner time so we stopped off at Mandria Fish & Chips restaurant for comfort food, trying not to get mud everywhere. We even found mud in Herc’s nappy.

Halfway home, the Land Rover started yelling at us. A god-awful clanging sound coming from somewhere underneath. We’d hurt it badly this time. But being a dependable fellow, it got us home – and all the way to the garage the next day.

The Land Rover spent two days recuperating, where it was given a new transfer box (?), a Thingy and a Whatsit. It cost €850 euros. Which made saving €500 euros last year on NOT having the four-wheel drive reattached a bit of a false economy.

Bugger.