Some years ago my wife and I were on holidays in Victoria,Australia, one of our favorite things to do whilst on holidays is to look for Aboriginal cave art or rock carvings. Generally there is a good sort of a walk involved after you have parked your car so it`s good exercise when a bit of an adventurous feel to it.

One particular place we stopped at was in the middle of no-where and we walked about 3 kilometres through an area filled with huge boulders and huge trees. The temperature was in the high 30`s and even though we had plenty of water with us we were certainly feeling the heat.

We reached the Aboriginal cave art area and were ,as usual, impressed with the condition of the paintings there,after all they were a couple of thousand years old and still perfectly viewable. As we were about to leave I noticed another cave about 30 metres away from the main one and decided to check it out.

The cave was well lit and looked like it might be nice and cool inside,my wife decided against going in but I was curious and did want to cool down so I went in by myself. I went in and stood in the middle of this really refreshingly cool,but not damp, cave and looked on the ceiling and walls for any sign of cave art. Sadly there was none but what there was was hundreds and thousands of flies,I have never seen so many flies. Whilst I was standing there they all decided to fly off the walls at the same time and I was absolutely surrounded by them,I kept my mouth shut in the hope that at least I wouldn`t swallow any but I shouldn`t have been concerned because not a single one of them even touched me. It was such a strange experience being utterly surrounded by these buzzing flies and not being touched at all,my wife looking in was revolted by them but they simply didn`t fly into me at all even as I walked out of the cave.

Now on the scale of strange happenings it probably doesn`t rate high but it certainly was an unusual experience.

Anyone else care to share a strange or slightly unusual holiday experience?

Quote:

---

One particular place we stopped at was in the middle of no-where and we walked about 3 kilometres through an area filled with huge boulders and huge trees. The temperature was in the high 30`s and even though we had plenty of water with us we were certainly feeling the heat.

---

There wasn't a girl in an old fashioned school uniform yelling out "Miranda" was there??


Years ago I was working on an island off the coast of SCotland and on my days off I'd go off to the mainland hitchhiking to visit friends or see somewhere new. Three times I got picked up by the same man. Two of the times were on his normal patch and wasn't that unusual really as he travelled it twice a day but the third time was well out of the way for both of us and neither could believe it when he pulled up.

It wasn`t at Hanging Rock no Jill but we did visit there on the same holiday. That was an eerie place IF you had seen the movie,nice view from the top of the climb.

I can`t recall the name of the place but I do remember that the road signs to it were hopeless and we had to stop at a dam to ask for directions,there were a lot of Vietnam vets there having a picnic and the bloke they had doing the cooking had no hands.

They did give us directions to the the cave art,but only after trying to extort beer from me,after I showed them I was down to my last two beers they felt sorry for me.

This wasn't on holiday but it was strange. Just this past week, I was in So. Carolina where hubby and I are thinking of buying a house. I had gone online at a realtor listing site and picked out a few houses that had met our criteria and called up a realtor I met a few months ago and asked if she could show us these houses. The first house was vacant and lovely, but much too large for just two people. So on we went to the next house in a nearby town about 15 miles away. This house was just perfect. I really liked just about everything about it, especially the color of paint on the walls in all the rooms. It was still occupied but they had left before we got there but we could tell that it was a family with three boys and 1 girl. The photos of the children scattered about the house were just darling. Especially the little girl who looked to be still under a year old.

OK, mark down this house as a 'possible-maybe' and on to the next house in another town about 30 miles away. Now THIS house was gorgeous. The grounds, the landscaping, the house, the rooms, the garage....I mean, I fell in love with this place. As before in the previous house, this one was occupied as well, but the owner stayed outside in the workshed to stay out of our way. This lovely place also had great wall coloring and I wouldn't have to change a thing. The realtor and I were walking through the house a second time, this time looking at the beautiful furnishings and decorations. All of a sudden, my realtor stopped and started to laugh and said "You're not going to believe this". She then held up a framed photo of the same little girl that we saw at the previous house 30 miles away. At first I thought the photo there and the one at the other house was one of those pictures that came with the frame and they kept it. Then it dawned that it was the same little girl, and upon looking around, we saw more photos around the house of the same boys, too. We went outside and found out from the owner that the other house belonged to his daughter and family! What a coincidence that I chose those two houses to look at out of the hundreds of houses in the area.

Wow! Amazing that!
I went on a course as soon as school finished one summer. it was great fun, a week's drama course and I got to know some really nice people.
When I finished the course , my mum and I, my two daughters and mum's friend all flew to Menorca to stay in the friend's villa and relax. We flopped around on the local beach for a week and then Mum hired a car so we could explore the island. We drove out one day and true to form Mum got us lost; well it was a joint effort. We came to a crossroads that said Santa Tomas beach and something else, we decided to head for the beach. It was so lovely! Very quiet, only about 3 people sitting on this huge expanse of sand, and one hotel, a good walk away. My youngest daughter absolutely refused to use the sea as a loo and so had to be taken to the hotel. I set out with her, tramping along on the hot sand,passing a couple who were sitting. Amazingly, they called out to me. It was a couple from the drama course. No one had mentioned they were going to Menorca, which is a very tiny island. Only by chance did we get lost (though it was nearly always a foregone conclusion with mum) and it was a very weird feeling to see the people I spent the week with.

These aren't holiday experiences, but they are freaky coincidences. Hope it's alright to post here?

I gave birth to my first child on Tuesday April 2nd several years ago. The labour was induced at 8 days after my due date, at 12 noon, and started to kick in at 14h00. She was born at 22h13 that night.

50 weeks later to the day labour was induced on my second child at 12 noon, in the same area of the same hospital. I was once again 8 days overdue. 'Hard' labour commenced at 14h00, and my son was born at 22h16. Figure this: it was also a Tuesday again (thanks to it being a leap year).

There are exactly 50 weeks and three minutes difference in age between my first two kids, and I find it freaky how things literally were a facsimile copy of the first time round.

Other 'family' coincidence: My first three children were all expected for the month of March, but one came in February, one in March and one in April.

And one more recent coincidence: Having been out of the workforce for ten years it was time for me to get back to work. The first temp agency I registered with had just hung up the phone to the company in which I am currently employed. I was interviewed for the job two months later, and on my first day at work my husband spent two hours in a phone interview with the closest direct competitor to the company where I had just begun to work. He got hired and started with them two months later.

My mam's cousin was a bit of a Globetrotter in his youth, was mugged in Amsterdam, and had hardly any money to get home to England. He hitched a lift, and the lorry driver who picked him up turned out to be originally from this town, and the driver's parents lived about 2 streets away from his own parents.

In 1971 I went to Mombassa in East Africa for a holiday then several years later I was in a bar in Southampton, in the South of England when a young man approached me and asked if I had been in Mombassa in 1971. When I said that I had a young man at the bar said to his friend "See, I told you so".

I had a T-Shirt made, bright yellow with "Beam Me Up, Scotty" on the front and "There's no Intelligent Life down here" on the back. I wore it at work a few times. I was in a pub in Richmond with my parents (about 90-odd miles from where I work) and a lady came up to me and asked "Do you work at X?" I confirmed that I did and she said that her sister worked there and she'd heard about the T-Shirt!

Terrific tales people!

I was on holidays down in the Grampians in Victoria eating a hot dog outside a kiosk,Lily was sitting next to me. I noticed that just behind us there was a large tree that was full of birds that seemed to be watching us pretty intently, so much so that I mentioned the movie "The Birds" to Lily.

I was enjoying the hot dog and it turned out that at least one of the birds also enjoyed hot dogs. As I went to place the last piece in my mouth,and I mean it was half in my mouth and half in my hand, one of the birds swept down and without touching mouth or hand snatched the hot dog from my lips!

I was shocked and outraged and automatically yelled out b%$#^%$ ( ) and shook my fist at the wretched creature scoffing down the last bit of hot dog in front of us, much to the amusement of the people around us.

If you ever find yourself in the Grampians enjoying a hot dog watch out for the Butcher birds!

Just as an aside whilst there we also watched a number of "fights" between large kangaroos. If you have never seen kangaroos standing up to each other and boxing it`s a pretty unusual, and funny, sight. Watching them rearing back onto their legs and tails and smacking each other in the face with their front paws is something to be captured on film for sure!
Here`s a video of one doing a bit of Taekwondo on some television presenters,just for fun.

It's seagulls here roos - some of them are BIG and they are mean, and they think nothing of snatching from people's hands given half a chance. The ones at Whitby are partial to freshly cooked fish and chips.
We once saw some at Beaulieu snatching chocolate chip cookies from the air when someone was throwing them up for them.

Happy birthday Rowena!

Happy Day from me too, Row!
The Seagulls here are few, as we are land-locked, but the Crows! They are big and mean!

Thank you

Seagulls do it here too, a bit upsetting especially for children to have one swoop down and steal ice cream.

In The West Country , locals get very angry when the emmets feed seagulls. They are considered vermin.

A slightly unusual holiday experience I had was when we went to Jamaica. We arrived at night, and next morning went for a walk along the beach. Imagine our surprise when we heard our names being called out. It was a friend from our home town who was also there on vacation. Neither he nor we knew the other was going to Jamaica. It's a small world.

I just found a site called 'The Titanic Awards" which details the worst holiday experiences. The following is a link to it and shows a scene at a railway station that just has to be seen, if you think you have been in the most overcrowded train ever......... think again!