When funny things happen on holiday

Grace Macdonald has travelled a lot in her life and says she’s one of those travellers that funny things always tend to happen to. Here are two of her funny short stories of travel in years gone by.

San Francisco

My darling husband John and I did manage to travel a bit before he became ill and passed, but I am sure he lived in terror when we went some places because when tired, all five feet and 50kg of me gets rather grumpy. 

In San Francisco one day a very large African American guy was asking tourists waiting for the tram if he could get their ticket for them – for a fee of course. We were the only couple who had theirs and declined his offer.

Talk about rude! He yelled that we said no to him because he was black. Somewhat unwisely when I look back on it, I stood on tip toes and yelled back. 

“I don’t care if you are purple with pink spots, we have our tickets, mate!” 

Dead silence. Then he laughed his head off and lifted me onto the tram that had just arrived. 

These little things did keep my John’s hair a nice shade of white. 

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New Zealand

About 30-off years ago I found myself in New Zealand with about 10 14- to 16-year-old dancers attending a competition. One was my 14-year-old son and another my 16-year-old daughter.

Our first stop was Queenstown to the mountains named The Remarkables – they lived up to their namesake!

At that time, everything closed early and two starving teenagers were not pleasant to be with. The vending machine came in handy, although chips and chocolate were not a nutritious choice.

After a full day after arriving, the last activity on the list was dinner on the top of yet another mountain.

I’m not scared of heights but a couple of rambunctious boys had joined my group on the sky pod. Five minutes in as we were just calmly gliding along, the boys started to jump up and down to freak-out the girls.

After a terse word, it continued, so up I got grabbed one by the ear, sat him on the seat and threatened to remove said object if he didn’t listen. Ah, peace at last. 

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It was a wonderful place to eat up so high. The sky was just bursting with stars.  

I was feeling a tad warm inside the restaurant so dumb me went outside onto the balcony, not realising the floor was sheet ice. I slid down all the way to the balcony fence and couldn’t get back up on the ice.

To say I was cold was putting it mildly. There were no phones back then, so I wig-wagged in vain to get some attention.

Eventually the children missed me and I became a source of great amusement.

Some smartie got everyone together to form a chain to me and I was dragged back to the restaurant. It no doubt made a great dinner story for everyone else.

But all-in-all, New Zealand was a wonderful country to visit. The glow worm caves were a treat but, being pitch black, the boys took full advantage in the next boat trying to scare the girls. 

Finally there was a moment of quiet where I called out, “Ears boys, ears!” And they gave up. 

As you can see, travelling with me can be as much of adventure as the destination itself.