Travel Mishaps happen to us all, right? But honestly, none so much as when I travel with my mum. We have broken down in Broken Hill, stacked mum’s motorbike, almost lost my nanny at the Gare du Nord in Paris, taken a 100 km detour due to bushfires, and have got lost, more than a few times.
Travel mishaps are part of the adventure, but when travelling with my mum, they are pretty much inevitable. I don’t know what it is about her energetic field, but she attracts travel mishaps like they are collectables.
Despite the hassle, these moments often open the door to something magical. It is vulnerability that allows connections between yourself and others, and we have really had some incredible connections.
The Trip’s Objective
I have always loved Irish Dancing. Before I could walk, I was glued to the TV watching Riverdance, bobbing up and down, desperate to dance. My affinity for Ireland and Irish Dancing is rather strong.
That’s why living in the country most of my life was so sad. I danced a few times as a child, but nothing was ever consistent. I travelled too much, and lived in places where Irish dancing didn’t exist.
At 24, I finally got into Irish Dancing in earnest. After a few years of wishing I was as good as those girls who hadn’t grown up in the country, I decided to go to the Irish Dancing National Competition in Bendigo. I was, of course, enrolled in the adult section, which is rather new and designed for beginners, like myself, or retired dancers.
The Bus RV
My mum has a bus, and we lived in it for close to three years. Now I’m settled in a home, mum is sorting out her Boomer possessions to downsize; we decided that this would be the bus’s last hurrah. We live in Adelaide, so Bendigo was just a two-day adventure away.
When Everything Goes Wrong
A wonderful adventure indeed. There was almost nothing on this trip that we could do right.
I had wanted to leave by 10 am. Perfectly reasonable.
Not with my mum.
Her gardener had shown up unannounced and thrown off her morning. Then, there was a problem with the gas bottles, which meant we didn’t leave until 11.59 am. At least it was still morning.
Travel Mishaps Part 1: Murray Bridge
We arrive in Murray Bridge, and Mum declares she has to go to Optus to connect her new Apple Watch with its SIM card.
This is the kind of thing that is easier in a country town rather than tackling a big shopping centre, especially when you’ve got two neurodivergent women battling the fluorescent lighting and PA systems of those evil Westfields.
However, the Optus woman had absolutely no idea how to help us.
Mum, with her ADHD Boomer brain, failed to charge the watch before going. A combination of time blindness and thinking charge lasts forever, like a Nokia brick phone.
With no help there, we went for lunch.
Mum was on a diet, but I was super hungry, and Fasta Pasta had a special.
Lasagna and salad, I’ll have the lasagna, and she can have the salad. However, it was so disgusting, so stodgy, the pasta so overcooked, that I legitimately couldn’t eat it. A downside to my neurodivergence is that if the texture is off, there’s no moving past it.
Mum’s diet was ruined as she ate my lasagna for me, and I ended up with another pasta; but hey, at least they turned the background music down so it wasn’t overstimulating.
So, there we were, just over an hour out of Adelaide, heading for 4 pm, and three travel mishaps under our belt. A late start, an unhelpful Optus lady, and an awful lunch.
Murderers
By 5.30 pm, we arrived in Border Town, just an hour shy of our goal for the day. We decided to stop there for dinner and then carry on after dark.
I actually love travelling at night, despite the lights of cars passing in the other direction blinding you. Those new LED ones, honestly, the danger of those lights for people with a stigmatism! Anyway, it can be a bit dangerous because of the kangaroos and wildlife, that either you kill or kill you, but what we didn’t expect was even more sad.
The bees I am so eager to save by fishing them out of the pool in summer, or planting flowers for them in spring, went splattered across our windshield, a whole swarm of them.
Dimboola
After our 7.30 pm arrival at the RV-friendly town of Dimboola, I had the worst night’s sleep imaginable. My covers were slippery, and they wouldn’t stay on, so I kept waking up all through the night in that half-wake, half-sleep daze of discomfort.
It was a new day though, and we were excited for our next adventure. Dimboola has free hot showers, and we were keen to use them. First, we really needed to check the oil though, which was fine.
What wasn’t fine was the fact that we hadn’t even had a cup of tea yet, and the bus was now limping down the main street.
One of the biggest travel mishaps you can have is breaking down, and the bus just wasn’t going. It was chugging along so slowly; we just wanted to get to the showers.
Travel Mishaps Part 2: Breaking Down
After ages on hold with the roadside assist, we found that all they could do was to tow us to the local mechanic, and the wait would be 4-6 hours. So, long lost were the showers, and off we chuffed again. Hazards on, pulled over to the side where we could. At least Dimboola is the kind of country town built from the gold rush, and has super wide streets from all those camel caravans.
We got to the mechanic and asked if he could have a look. It seemed like a fuel intake issue of sorts, or so we hoped. It was like the bus was just choking.
Finally, we went to the showers whilst he looked at the bus.
We Were Dumb
Turns out that we had pressed the exhaust brake button in the process of pulling back the curtains in the morning.
So, with some wasted money spent on the mechanic’s time, we continued on.
Travel Mishaps Part 3: Flagged Down from Danger
It was less than an hour before we pulled up to a set of road work traffic lights along this road. We had been driving in this open space for ages, teetering and tolling a bit in the strong winds.
A car rolled around in front of us at the lights and came to the window to tell us that our awning had come loose and was flapping off.
Super.
What on earth could we do to pull the awning back in with this wind? We had no ladders, nothing to climb, yet somehow, we had to try to pull the awning down and roll it back up when Thor’s winds were pulling it away.
Orange Knights on Green Steeds
Fortunately, two lovely roadworkers came over and offered us a hand. Their orange high vis glimmering in the sunlight, flapping in the wind like the heroes of time gone past. Pulling up their green steeds next to the bus to climb the lofty heights and retrieve the awning from Thor’s tight grasp.
The real gift was the conversation it caused. From helpless damsels, we became educators, sharing differing perspectives and ideas about life. One of the handsome knights shared his own personal journey, shedding insight into the mind of men. It was illuminating, inspiring and insightful.
I felt such gratitude for the connection we shared. All of which wouldn’t have happened without our travel mishaps.
The being late, the breaking down, the flapping awning, all of these little mistakes, these unfortunate events, had led to the perfect timing so that not only could we accept this gift of love and charity, and that these men could give it, but also so that we could share something even more special – a true connection.
Travel Mishaps Part 4: Bank and Broom
With the bus fixed, it was time to get that windscreen cleaned from the bee swarm. We stopped at the next town to go to the bank and buy a broom to wash the window. But the bank was closed and the aisle was full of mops, no broom in sight.
More wasted time, and on to the next town.
Busting for the loo, I decided to go down the main street to the public toilet rather than up the street to the bank. We could go there after (we never made it to the bank).
But I saw a second-hand store and got distracted on my return.
Returning to the bus with my loot, I got frustrated with the door, grabbing the attention of the store owner whose shop we were parked outside of.
“It’s been a long day.” I started, as I went on to explain our travel mishaps and how we needed to clean the windscreen.
I put the things inside, and when I came back out, there he was with a bucket of hot soapy water, a squiggly and a step ladder, just as mum returned with the broom.
To See Clearly Is All
This man helped me with the windscreen for no other reason than he could. It was a true gift of love and charity, just like the roadworkers.
Not only did this man clear the windscreen of bugs, but he also cleared my mind of the scum that was hindering my vision.
These travel mishaps weren’t mistakes; they weren’t bad, wrong or anything to be angry or upset about.
In fact, other than being frustrated, I had been quite pleased with my attitude towards this series of unfortunate events, because I knew at the end of the day, we would make it in time, even if it was down to the wire, even if I had to hitchhike.
The Magic of Mishaps
I have a theory why poor people are often happier than rich (provided they are not impoverished). People who need help get help, and that builds connection.
When you can pay the bill, when you can fly to your destination, when you don’t have these little struggles to overcome – there are so many missed opportunities.
Now this isn’t to say that you can’t have these experiences if you are wealthy. Maybe with wealth, you get to be the person doing the helping more.
But there is something to be said about being stuck, being dumb, being a damsel and being helped.
It gives you a sense of connection to the world. Especially to those people whom you will meet, impact, and never see again.
So many of us live such insular lives, giving only to those whom we love and never sharing love with the rest of the world.
You don’t need to change the world to change someone’s life. And although the people on this journey didn’t shift something inside of me that will never be the same, what they did do was remind me of what existed all along.
When you are in alignment with what you want, and when you trust that no matter what happens, you will get there, the rest is just an adventure.
When you are in alignment with what you want, and when you trust that no matter what happens, you will get there, the rest is just an adventure.
If I had been anxious or grumpy or mean, I would have been closed off to the miracles and gifts of this journey.
Now, for those of you saying my experience is simply pretty privilege, or that it is because we were women. That might have a part to play, but what I think is more important than that is that we hollered at the workmen for help, we asked. What is different is that I spoke to the shop owner about my struggles, not to complain, but because it was, at this stage, a kind of humorous story – I was sharing my vulnerability.
Love and Charity
It is so important to be open to the gifts of life and remember that the majority of the gifts we receive in life come with some sort of work.
It is true when they say, ‘nothing worth having is ever easy’. This doesn’t mean you need to struggle; it simply means that without hardship of some sort, there is no space to appreciate the results.
Don’t let life close you off. When things go wrong, open up and trust rather than close off and hate.
I could have completely catastrophised this journey, because by all accounts, the number of travel mishaps we encountered was rather ridiculous. But instead, I trusted, I surrendered, and I knew it was all going to be okay. And with that came the most beautiful gifts of love and charity.
If you enjoyed reading this and would like to see all the travel mishaps unfold with all the laughs caught on camera, watch the adventure on my YouTube
For more travel mishaps, read about my motorbike adventure that also went terribly wrong in the best most magical way possible in my article My Motorcycle Road Trip: Mishaps, Miracles & Meeting ‘Jesus’