‘Well, I knew you were highly strung, but not in a masochistic way. Although being the dominant one is actually very masochistic, in my view. I mean, all that time-consuming effort and financial outlay. Then there are all those knots that need memorising, and . . .’

‘Rope burn from abseiling,’ I clarified, coolly.

I then explained how, over breakfast that morning, as our ship docked in Port Vila, Vanuatu, I thought my sisters had been chatting excitedly about canapés. I was under the impression they were planning on taking me to a local restaurant, but they meant canopies, not canapés, as in rainforest canopies with zip-lining and abseiling.

Now, I have a head for heights. Thanks to my journalistic job, I’m the Edmund Hillary of social climbing. Well, okay, maybe just the lower social slopes, inhabited by local surfing champs and footy heroes. But, dangling above the tree tops from a flimsy rope, I’d reached new heights – of terror. When I saw the harness I was to be strapped into, I’d clung to my sisters like Robinson Crusoe to his life raft.

‘We’re doing this for fun?’ I queried, aghast. ‘Other than, say, the bubonic plague or a tsunami, could there be anything less fun than hurtling through thin air held up by a bit of dental floss?’

Both my sisters remained unperturbed. Emerald was like a bouncy labrador, the type that causes chaos with its wagging tail. She was whooping her way across the leafy canopy at breakneck speed, not caring how many times she snagged or lurched or accidentally flipped upside down. Amber, on the other hand, was like a cat – standoffish, quiet, a touch superior, surveying the route with a calculating eye before eventually nailing the task with the finesse of a highwire trapeze artist.

After completing the course, my sisters stood together on the platform on the other side of the rainforest canopy and cheered me on in stereo.

Emerald cupped a hand to her mouth and shouted out, ‘Don’t be a wuss!’

‘Any intelligent person, even a reasonably bright fungus, could see that leaping into the unknown like this is a stupid idea!’ I’d shouted back to them.

‘Carpe diem, remember?’ Amber urged.

‘Does the word “splat” mean anything to youuuuuu!’ My sentence changed direction when the insouciant French ropes instructor suddenly shoved me forward. I screamed and squeezed my eyes shut as wind whistled through my hair. After what felt like an eternity, but was probably about thirty seconds, I felt a wrench. Certain that my right arm had been torn from its socket and was already hitchhiking back to the boat without me to order a cocktail, I was amazed to realise that I’d simply landed in my sisters’ warm and welcoming arms. They hugged me simultaneously and congratulated me on conquering my fear.