As I struggled along the road I was overtaken by a dozen butterflies. They must have taken pity on me because they took up formation at each of the handlebars before accelerating away with the wind. Undaunted I continued the bike ride, my first in over 40 years.

The last time I rode a bicycle had been on 20 November 1964, the day after I passed my driving test in Malton. It had been a symbolic ride down to the stables, a trip I'd done for many years before and after school each day and each weekend. I knew every inch of Potter Hill, the turn into Train Lane, viewed at ground level the morning I hit black ice, then left over the railway line and bridge across Pickering beck, along Hungate, right into Malton Road past the Forest and Vale, left into Outgang Road and on to “The Ranch” at Mickle Hills. Here the stables had to be cleaned and the ponies exercised, fed, groomed each morning and evening.

Now half a lifetime and half a world away I trying 'pedal power' again.

Neighbour Rosemarie lent me her old bike and accompanied me for the first venture. “We have to go on flat ground” she had emphasised, so the bikes had been loaded onto a vehicle and driven over the hills. I was shown the gears, a very sophisticated set of twenty one, a great advance on the three I remembered on my old Pink Witch.

It was amazing that I didn't wobble too much and quickly mastered the gears on the right hand side... adding those of the left hand would have to wait. We pedaled to the Swan Swamp and I loved traveling at pony-speed again rather than whizzing past in the car. There were wild flowers growing on the road edges to enjoy and colourful birds, beetles and butterflies were busy feeding.

The second ride was on my own. This meant I had to negotiate our long driveway of gravel with a steep hill and tight corner. When I arrived at our gateway I was faced with a couple of hundred metres of potholed gravel road followed by an uphill climb on tar to Bakers Road. I nearly wore out the back brake as I gingerly skidded down the gravel road and then I had to work really hard to crawl up to Bakers Road. It was horrifying how unfit I was, all that walking and I still gasped and wheezed up this quite modest slope. At least the other side was downhill and then onto the long flat. Wrong! What I'd always thought of as the long flat to O'Halloran's Hill wasn't flat at all, it was all uphill. I struggled along in bottom gear and admitted defeat, I pushed the bike to the end of the road, where Rosemarie and I had started out the first time.

From here it would be easy. Wrong again. Today there was a howling easterly wind. I learned three things that day; I needed to bike on wind-free days, I needed to take a water-bottle for a much needed drink and I needed to wear a fly veil because I couldn't outpace the insects

Day three, wind free, water bottle strapped to the bike, fly veil in place and I huffed and puffed to the Swan Swamp. My left hand was numb from gripping the handlebars so tightly. The local council men were doing the kerbside collection of recycled bottles and paper. They asked if I was okay as I gulped down the water and tried to look nonchalant as I scanned the water for the swan family.

But now six months on I have progressed to riding my own bike, Bob has bought one too and we enjoy an hour of riding every second or third day. We’re fitter and have lost the odd kilogram or two. We've taken the bikes on some of our trips, so we've pedaled in Sydney, near Canberra, on the east coast and across the dry lake bed of Lake Mungo, one of the world’s most significant  human cremation sites and Australia’s first World Heritage-listed national park. That was a truly magical experience.   Bike riding – I’m hooked.

Caroline Gaden.