My worst ever experience was going on holiday to Florida in June 2016, it was my first time there with the family so we didn’t know the good areas from the bad ones.
Our first night we got to our villa (in a lovely part of Kissimmee) and where totally shattered but we needed to get food so i jumped in the car and off i went looking for Walmart. I ended up in orange county (i think) and went to Walmart about 9pm at night.
All was well until i came out the shop and went back to my car, opened the boot to put the groceries in and some random guy and his kid walked up to me. “Hi sir, can you be so kind to take me and my son to your house, our home burnt down and we have no where to live, its just need the one night sir PLEASE”. I explained that i was on holiday and couldn’t take him back with me as i didn’t know who he was and secondly we didn’t have the room in the Villa. He started then getting a bit aggressive asking me where i stayed and if i had a wife etc.
I explained again that i wasn’t going to help (politely) and wasn’t telling him anything, i started putting my groceries back into the boot, when his 12 year old son (or so he told me) pulled a handgun on me and told me to “take us back to your F\*cking villa” it took me a moment to realise, but once i did i tried to remain calm and said no son i wont be taking you back and asked him to put the gun down.
He told me he was going to shoot me take my car and go to my villa and kill my family. At this point another couple came down and asked WTF was going on, so i said i was being held at gunpoint for no reason i was a fucking tourist. Next thing i know the two people who came down where off retired cops but where unarmed and started to reason with the two idiots.
Around 2 mins later I see two cop cars come flying round the corner blue lights and sirens going, they come speeding down towards where we are and the two people holding me started running, turns out the police who came where responding to a bloody bomb threat that had been called into the store by some random! Apparently it happens alot at this walmart!
Shaken and absolutely knackered i just burst into tears and asked if all of Florida is like this as im going home tomorrow if it is, fuck staying 3 weeks in this place. Once i calmed down the two retired cops advised everything was fine but this was a rough area and told me where to go nearer to where i was staying., they introduced me to the police attending the fake bomb threat and i gave them a description and told them of my ordeal. They actually gave me an escort back out of the area to ensure i wasnt being followed.
As for the two idiots they where caught trying to car jack another guy the next night. And i believe are subsequently still in jail to this day, due to being done for car jacking and kidnapping.
I enjoyed the rest of my holiday and have since been back to Florida four more times since and never experienced anything like this again.
Anyone top that? Lol
35 comments
That’s awful, iv been there a lot and never had a bad experience. Glad it was on after that though
Jesus, that sounds awful…
I got downvoted into oblivion asking the facetious question, why do Americans need guns for safety but tourists can’t hire a gun for their protection – this story kind of takes the humour out of my questions…
I mean you’ve set the bar pretty high there! I don’t think a dodgy belly from overdoing it at the buffet compares…
Pretty much shat out every internal organ I possess in Morocco once
I was going to write about the time my hotel room got flooded from torrential rain in Tennerif.. but yeh, held at gunpoint in a Wallmart car park pretty much tops most stories I’ve heard.
I’ve been all around the USA (ok, 17 states so far) and I found Florida the rudest one I went to.
Going on holiday with friends who can’t drive. Went to a remote holiday park with a caravan.
I went to Morocco with Uni friends about 18 years ago.
On the first night in a coastal town, we started chatting to a local on the next table. He invited us all (11 of us) round to his house the next day for dinner.
After dinner, they held us hostage and brandished weapons until we gave them all our money – massive shake down.
It lasted an hour before they gave up on us – nobody had brought any money with them as there wasn’t any need to.
Returning from a school ski trip to northern Italy and having to wait fourteen hours to get a flight home.
Dan Air abandoned us.
Nearly got raped.
When I was a child, around 10 years old, I was on a family holiday in Florida. It was all going well until 9/11 happened, I may have only been a child but I sensed a huge change in the vibe.
We didn’t return to England for an additional two weeks if I remember correctly. There was also a hurricane in Florida at the time as well 🫤
Haven’t been on many flights since that whole experience.
Going to Dawlish a good few years back, my parents thought it would be this nice coastal resort type holiday.
We got there and it was a rather underwhelming, pretty cheap caravan park, and in which the caravan we were given was right next to the train line.
We had like one nice day out to look around the town of Dawlish itself, but other than that I think my highlight was getting lots of snacks from the local shop and watching movies in the caravan.
Also one that was more of a bad moment than a bad holiday:
We stayed in Gozo, early September so tried to fit into that small gap between the end of summer holidays and the start of the monsoon season. Had a nice little villa with some steps down into the living room, a pool out the back etc…
We were mostly ahead of the monsoon season, there was one day where there was a sudden heavy rainstorm, probably only like 10 mins for it to pass over, it hit us while we were driving back to the villa.
When we got back, that living room that was down some steps at a lower level than the rest of the house, was filled up to socket level with dirty water. Fortunately the owners got some cleaning staff out to the house the same day and had the room completely cleared and dried out within that afternoon.
I wouldn’t say the holiday was absolutely terrible as we still had a great time but we got absolutely ripped off with a trip to Dubai a couple of years ago.
We’d booked with TUI to go to Jamaica all inclusive but due to Covid restrictions at the time we weren’t able to go, and last minute changed it to Dubai. I had to pay £2,000 extra for the two of us to be all inclusive.
We landed, our booked, via TUI, taxi didn’t turn up. Then we got to the hotel and was given a letter telling us what ‘all inclusive’ entitled us to, which was barely even half board. Every time we got a drink or a sandwich by the pool, we were having to pay. Could only have very limited menus in certain hotel restaurants at strict set times.
Complained to TUI and got a measly £250 voucher back from them. I wouldn’t have minded if I’d have gotten the £2,000 extra I paid for all inclusive, the rest of the holiday I was happy to pay for as we enjoyed. But what should have cost us barely anything whilst on the trip, ended up costing £1,000 in extra hotel charges
I had a pretty dodgy time in Florida, too. The bedding on my hotel bed had fresh blood and pubes on it but there were no rooms available elsewhere so I had to sleep on it (slept on top of the bedding).
It was in Portugal, me and my parents were awoken and probably everyone else who were in the same block , by this couple who were arguing about something, as there were a lot of screaming shouting doors banging.
I think booze had been used, and the bloke probably was trying to chat up someone else.
I am sure security were called as I could hear something like batons being used as I could hear cries of pain.
Also we went Half board one year in Bulgaria lets say it would have been better if the hotel just did breakfast, the staff made very little effort with evening meal, as the hotel manager was away on holiday the staff rebelled and allowed us to even bring our own alcohol drinks around the pool from our rooms, bar at night and just buy the soft drinks.
In Tenerife as a 12 or 13 year old I was at the arcades and has arranged to meet my parents outside the arcade at a certain time, it was night time. Well I spanked all my money quickly so went outside to wait and this friendly old man who we had seen a few days before talked to me and I still not sure how but convinced me to go through this archway that lead to a beach but it was pitch black, I noticed the way to the beach was actually gated off in the distance and then it dawned on me that this was a bad idea, as soon as I said I was going back he grabbed me but I managed to escape and ran back to the hotel.
Well eventually my parents came back to the hotel and they were fucking livid with me because I never met them at the arranged time, I never did tell them.
Went to Menorca for a fortnight with the in-laws to a hotel, run by a married couple, they’d stayed at before and really recommended – except that the husband had died just before our holiday, but his widow insisted she could still manage things.
She couldn’t.
The pool was filthy and the housekeeping was approximate, but what really suffered was the catering; we got used to seeing trays of raw chicken thawing by an open window, attracting every bluebottle in the Balearics. We ate out most of the time.
We did have lunch once; I chose the garlic soup, which is supposed to be poured piping hot over a raw egg, cooking the egg in the process. I hadn’t realised it hadn’t been served hot enough until I was halfway through it and scooped up a spoonful of raw yolk and snotty white…
How we didn’t get food poisoning I’ll never know.
Arrived in Birmingham at around 5pm for a night out at a party, I was looking around enjoying the city outside the front of my hotel when a car of chavs started accusing me of staring at them, they drive over with a gun out of the window shouting at me lol.. came back outside the hotel for a smoke an hour or so later and they where still there, but once we left for the party they had gone!
I went to Bulgaria’s Sunny Beach on a whim, cheap last minute holiday. £400 for me and my partner for a whole week in some nice weather..
I’ll start by saying the Weather was perfect and Sunny Beach itself was gorgeous. The sea was beautiful and there was only a couple people there at the time which was great. The hotel however was GOD AWFUL. Like really really bad to the point where I left a bad review on my first day and the hotel manager came and found me by the pool and I thought I was in trouble when She and 2 men took me into her office!
Here’s roughly what I complained about;
1. Food was pratically cold minutes after coming out the kitchen.
2. Bottle bank below our room was constantly making noise, it was also the smoking area so our room stank. Even with the balcony door shut.
3. Staff literally didn’t care about your experience. The bell boy pratically snatched my bag from my hands at reception and demanded a tip at my room, told him to please fk off.
4. The drinks served in the evening were awful. They were pouring wayyyyy too much alcohol and little mixer in the cocktails.
Fortunately the manager was very kind and understanding and explained it was her first month there and wanted to change the bad things as I was one of the only bad reviews but it turns out THE ONLY REVIEW left lol.
Next day we went down for Breakfast and we’re met with a line of staff all clapping everyone in with huge smiles on their faces. Infintely better service being asked if we wanted drinks brought to us instead of us getting them.
The best bit, they had hired a proper bartender to make drinks on Friday-Sunday evenings so the cocktail and drinks were far far better.
Moral of the Story, speak to the Manager and activate your inner Karen. It actually made my stay so much better and I like to think the standards of the hotel in general improved alot!
Cuba, last summer.
Complete shithole. Hotels were awful, food was gross (I eat anything. It really was gross), Cubans treated differently to paying guests.
Beer in plastic cups. Ran out of everything. Same salad out at tea time as the morning. I know this because there was a tomato with a mark on it that looked like Hans Gruber and it was back out at teatime.
The day after my last A level exam, a whole bunch of us from school flew out to Tenerife. It was the cheapest hotel on the whole island. We saw places for more money that were room only, whereas ours was all-inclusive plus flights, so that says a lot about the quality we could expect.
There was 10 of us across 5 rooms: 3 of the rooms flooded with sewage. The “two single beds” were two single beds but with a double mattress on top, so we had to share a double with someone.
2 people got stuck in a lift, on two separate occasions, including on one day when the power blew for the entire hotel and it took over 12 hours for it to come back.
The pool was absolutely disgusting, it was freezing cold and there was a couple of inches on sand floating on the bottom. Every day 90% of the outdoor area was taken over by quad-lingual bingo (English, Spanish, German, Russian) so you couldn’t even just relax by the pool.
The all-inclusive bar was terrible, the only beer was Amstel and they just didn’t have most spirits, so it was Amstel, brandy or vodka the whole week. The food wasn’t much to write home about, but at least it wasn’t totally inedible or unhygienic.
I got my drink spiked in the bar when I hoovered up our remaining drinks. We think someone was trying to spike one of the girls who was with us. It was literally just before we left so I had the worst flight of my life, being propped up in the airport by two mates under each arm, astonished I was let on the plane really.
As we were leaving on the coach back to the airport, the hotel next door (identical design, run by the same management) burnt to the ground, killing a few people.
The hotel made the front page of the Mail Online a few years later after being voted the worst hotel on the whole island. Half tempted to organise a five-years-later reunion this summer, if the place is still open.
I was on holiday with friends in the South of France. I was 21. I don’t eat fish (loathe the smell and taste) but was persuaded to try langoustine. Didn’t like them but ate a couple to show willing.
I was delerious for the next two days. I was due to travel home on my own and somehow I hung in til I got to the UK. All the time I was thinking ” the NHS will look after me” (it was 1978) my handbag and passport were stolen on the plane and I collapsed at Heathrow, vomiting everywhere. I don’t remember much until my parents drove down from Yorkshire to find me in isolation because I hadn’t been able to explain why I was ill and they were testing me for all sorts of tropical horrors.
I lost half a stone and my father had to carry me out if the car when I got home two weeks later. I still don’t know if it was food poisoning, allergic reaction or an attempt to roofie me (or whatever the 1970s version was) by the one creepy guy in the party.
Had two weeks off, decided to spend the first week at a caravan in Selsey as I’m from that area and could visit all the family, we’d only really be using the caravan for sleeping The second week was in Norfolk, a lovely farm house in the middle of nowhere with it’s own outdoor swimming pool. Great for me, hubby and the three kids aged 5 – 12
Our last night in the caravan we decided to get a takeaway. I had something different but the others all had burgers.
The following day we arrived in Norfolk and planned to be out swimming the following day.
It started first with my eldest daughter on our first night in the farm house, the diarrhoea and the vomiting, she was in a sorry state. An hour later, the middle child started started the same thing and then half an hour later my youngest started too. Then my husband. I was the only one not to get it.
They were all throwing up for 2 days and then had no energy to do anything for the 3rd day, I spent the whole two days running from person to person, helping them clear things up (apart from my husband obviously, I just left him to get on with it)
Luckily the place had three toilets but I was literally running up and down stairs, getting clean towels, changes of clothing. It was horrendous. I’m a nurse so more than used to dealing with those things but not when I’m on holiday thank you very much,
So we had spent a fair sum of money to get a place with a swimming pool and nobody felt like using it for the first 3 days.
On holiday to Italy a good few years back my grandfather slipped and fell, with what we thought was a banged up collarbone. However over a couple of hours he ended up in serious pain and it swelled up like a balloon so we ended up having to go to hospital.
There were two hospital options- fight with the travel insurance people for the private hospital or use the local hospital for free/very little money. We went with the local hospital.
What followed was almost a comedy. Their version of A&E was so chaotic that people were just walking in and helping themselves to supplies whilst there didn’t seem to be any triage system whatsoever. It took my grandmother being really insistent and repeatedly getting the attention of staff that anything happened. Then they insisted on my tiny 4’11” grandmother wheeling a massive wheelchair to various places (no porters or other staff to help) and bringing various pieces of paper to staff who didn’t have a clue about anything and didn’t speak English half the time.
The funniest part came when we finally saw a doctor who had a clue and who spoke English. My grandfather happened to tan really easily and with his dark hair was often mistaken for being Italian/Spanish/Greek/a local wherever we went. The doctor was adamant that despite his UK passport that he must be from somewhere else and there was an argument about this.
Eventually he was discharged with a support sling and painkillers, but the whole thing was just a pain in the backside.
Not the worst, as I was a child so didn’t experience most of the stress!
Also Florida in the mid 90s – arrived from UK, left airport in hire car to go to the rental offices to collect the keys for our villa. Rental offices had been broken into. Glass everywhere, staff traumatised, ambulances treating gun shot wounds and your classic American sheriffs telling my parents that we’d have to find somewhere else to stay as all the keys had been stolen.
Somehow, my dad convinced the sheriff to let him take a look around just in case. So armed with his printed instructions to identify our lock box and key, my dad went in leaving my mum, with me and my siblings in the rental car surrounded by law enforcement whilst I’m crying saying I needed a wee!
My dad comes back out some time later brandishing our key (they had surnames on to make sure you got the right ones). Turns out the thieves had been disturbed and left a lockbox untouched. Our keys were in there. My dad was interviewed for the local papers the next day about how British tourist didn’t fear crime scene and saved his family’s holiday. We’ve only got a torn up paper copy of the article but it makes us laugh now.
Actual worst moment on holiday – held at gunpoint in Rio during the Olympics by someone having a mental breakdown. A small group of Brazilian teenagers rescued us on their mopeds for $30. Rest of our trip was incredible though, just that small hairy moment!
Great holiday but it was awful when the lads were looking in the window of the shower room about to try and wind me up like “Hellloooooo” and I was having a wank.
Went to Benidorm on a lads holiday, flew out the day after England beat Spain in Euro 96. The first night we went down to the square and a lad from Sheffield started talking to us…”you should’ve seen it here last night it was mental, we were scrapping with all the locals from that bar over there” he pointed over to an open air bar in the corner that was quite busy and without saying a word he picked up a pool ball launched it across the square and started screaming “c’mon you shithouses” within seconds there were what seamed to be hundreds of locals steaming over followed by dozens of police, we got an absolute kicking, my brother got his nose broke by a copper and Sheffield lad had fucked off.
We went to Scotland ‘skiing’ for a week, however the snow had melted for exactly the ‘week’ we were there…
So it was a couple of my close mates, some medium (younger) mates, and then the medium mates-mates. We had two cabins, which quickly divided into; me + close mates + medium mates and then their mates (who were female – relevant later) in the second cabin.
The first night was a riot. We got drunk, all got along, had a hot tub, ate loads of pizzas and generally had the time you’d expect a group of early twenties kids to have. Great stuff.
But then…
Everyone woke up hungover, and with nothing to do. The place was a mess, to a ‘the owners are going to take us to court for this’ degree. We, the older lot, set about tidying up, but the younger (medium mates) flat refused. And, in fact, set about making the situation worse by not only making more mess, but by damaging (through ‘inexperienced cooking’) more stuff. It was like herding cats. The second cabin had yet to resurface.
Everyone was bored. And in no mood to make the situation better by indulging any ideas for things to do. It was catch 22; the kids were complaining that there’s nothing to do, whilst refusing to do anything (other than complain). Games, sports, visit somewhere, more drinking? Nope. The first day was essentially prison. The second cabin refused any form of social contact – in fact by this point they’d adopted a ‘you’re a bunch of freaks, we fucking hate you’ attitude (all except one (the ‘hot’ one) – who’d developed a ‘I’m going to lead you on’ attitude towards one of my (close) mates. Which of course sent him around the bend, and she maintained the ‘I hate you’ attitude towards the rest of us).
And so went the second day. Until we talked everyone (including the second cabin) into visiting the local village / pub…
Which went great! Few beers, daft carry on etc. Excellent! But then… The second cabin decided to chat up some local fellas. And these were big, out in the sticks, manual work (they looked like builders) Scottish Mens Men. Mid thirties. No messing around. They had their sights set on these skinny, early twenties, indie chic women, which in actual fact scared the life out of the second cabin and so they retreated back to our group for safety, but inadvertently bringing three horny, now frustrated and angry Bigger Boys with them.So of course, it falls to the older (me) of the group to say ‘now fellas, no means no’ which is, of course, met with ‘who the fuck are you, cunt’ and things escalate whilst the second cabin slink off and leave us to get our heads kicked in by some locals (we didn’t, as it happens, we managed to back out of there, but it was close!).On the way back, one of the second cabin thanked me for standing up for them, but admitted that they’d set about to lead them on, stating “I just assumed I was intelligent enough to play with them until I got bored. And then get rid of them”. For. Fucks. Sake.
Third day… Breakfast time. More mess. More burnt things. But this time including one of the younger kids, as he put his hand on a red hot electric stove, resulting in the worst burn (and subsequent blister) I’ve ever seen in my life. And so off we go, an hours drive, to the local hospital to have him patched up, which takes forever because it’s A&E and they have better things to do be doing. Leaving the rest of us to simply skulk around Perth from early AM with very little to do, in the freezing cold and nowhere indoors to go… several hours later we get back to the cabin and it’s back to prison. Fuck. Sake.
Fourth day… We’ve given up. This is awful. Let’s just pack up, ditch the kids, book a couple rooms in Edinburgh and go have a fucking riot on the town – that’s what we’re best at, after all. It takes a little convincing to abandon the fully paid for (and expensive) cabin but we cant stay here. It’s torture. So we’re packed, the cabin’s as close to how we found it as we could manage, and off we go. Everyone’s in good spirits again – we’re off to fucking Edinburgh! How can anything go wrong now?! We stop off at a Morrisons for supplies, and on the way out of the car park, our driver makes a song and dance about how good his car control is with a full take of fuel in it. He starts swerving left and right, loses it, and cracks a wheel off a curb, bending a suspension arm. The car now looks like Bambi, and it’s going nowhere.
4 – 5 hours sitting in a cramped AA tow truck back to our home town.
Gets back to work on the Monday after, checks the snow report – idyllic white, perfect skiing snow returned to the slopes.
Fuck. Sake.
Why is the US fucking mental?
I nearly got swept out to sea on the coast of Dieppe when I was 11 was clinging to an inflatable for dear life as my dad pulled me back in
i went to hunstanton one year, may have been 2018. the place we were going to stay originally had been double booked and it was decided the other people would get to stay there rather than us. we managed to find a place in a village called brancaster and figured it wouldn’t be much of a problem.
there is nothing in that village. the nearest shop is a petrol station that was a 45 minute walk from where we stayed. the house was clean and it was good enough however having to drive everywhere quickly got tiring.
the week went by with myself, my mother and my sister pretty much bored out of our minds because there was nothing to see.
i’m excited to go home so here i am piled in the car and we set off… for the car to break down 20 minutes later. we spent 7 hours in a lay-by arguing with the AA because of the remote location, again with not much aside from a petrol station (cheddars for lunch anyone?) until we’re picked up to continue the 3 hour drive home by a guy who to be fair was wonderful, very kind and of course took us all the way back home which was pretty far from norfolk! 10/10 would not repeat, lol.
I was 6, so about 2004? We were in Florida. We’d been to see some Arabian Nights Themed horse show? My father, mother, twin sister and I got into a taxi that confirmed he was our pre-booked ride. About 5 minutes into the journey it became abundantly clear that this man was not our pre-booked taxi, and was potentially not a taxi driver at all. To this day I’ve been held so tight by my mother with one arm as my dad (in a tone of voice I do not want to hear again) very firmly told this man to return us to where he had picked us up from, or he would have to call the police. I think my sister started crying and the man turned around and dropped us off. Florida’s crazy
Jesus that’s awful, can’t top that but do have a story
Went to France in 2010 as a family holiday. Started off badly as Channel tunnel was delayed, but as we were in a van (vw t4 with seat in back) we could go in the freight one. This is fine, but what they don’t tell you is you get on the train (which is open sided) and then have to get in a mini bus which takes you to a carriage full of truckers which smells like no one has washed in weeks (not nice for me aged 15, sister aged 12). When you get to calais you then get into the minibus and are meant to say when to stope (no told us or spoke English) so got out and had to walk half a mile to the van (and not fall on the rails..).
Anyway after that ordeal we were driving to southern France (about 10 hour drive). About halfway we started to overheat. Then had to stop every 15 mins to top the water back up for the rest of the drive and decided to deal with it when we got to where we stayed.
Finally got there and reception was all closed, so had to walk around for an hour just to find someone to let us into the resort place and get keys etc. Turns out the place we stayed was essentially the side of a mountain (it was in a valley but the photos made it look kinda flat) and you kinda needed a car to get anywhere (we brought bikes but no chance of cycling).
Eventually get the van taken to a garage and fixed, so had no transport for 5 days. Garage were useless, the water pump had broke, so they replaced it but put the belt on backwards which we only found when it failed again 2 years later.
Rest of the holiday was OK, but literally everything went wrong for the first few days which has burned it into my memory.
Blackpool, everything about the place
Sixth form skiing trip to Europe. Coach broke down in the middle of nowhere, meaning we missed our tunnel booking, teachers led us to a pub, one got so pissed that he couldn’t function, the other then led us all black across fields and country lanes at night, got lost, new coach arrived and set off without our bags, so had to return for those, all fine until we got to France when the now raging hungover teacher slipped and broke something in his foot and had to go to hospital, while the rest of us went on to the resort. Once we got there the tiny hotel that was booked out for us had accidentally booked another group in at the same time meaning some of us were without beds and had to sleep on the floor with blankets. One of the non-pissed teacher’s husbands then got into a fight with a second year after accusing him of trying to break into their room and he got sent away, meaning there wasn’t the required ratio for something. Then two people broke bones on a sort of icy not water slide thing. It was a cracking trip though.
Mine was self-inflicted and cycling related.
It was a rural Germany in August and I was on a long solo day ride away from base. Everything was going well until I realised I didn’t have any lights with me. As the light began to fade I consulted my map and saw that I wasn’t going to be able to cross a large river because the last ferry of the day had sailed. How would I get back to base?
I saw there was a tunnel under this river about 50km north. I set off with a nagging feeling that maybe this tunnel wasn’t cycle friendly but had no option.
As I approached the tunnel I saw that it was a motorway tunnel and 2km long. No cycles. I could see there was an emergency walkway for drivers whose cars broke down. I decided to cycle down it which in retrospect was insane. The walkway was as wide as a pavement but there was a lot of traffic and everyone was flashing their lights etc at this mad cyclist. I kept going.
After I emerged from the tunnel I tried skulking along at the side of the hard shoulder. I saw a police car and guessed it was looking for me. After briefly considering hiding behind a hedge I decided the game was up and waited for the cops.
The German cops were very nice, though they clearly thought I was a lunatic. I showed them I had a map and where I needed to go. They gave me and my bike a lift a few km up the motorway to where there was a junction. I could pick up a signed off-road cycle route near there.
This would have been fine if it wasn’t completely dark. No lighting of course over the track. Since it was totally dark I could only travel slowly but I went on as best I could. Scary.
After an hour or so I stopped and leant the bike against a signpost pole to have a rest. Without warning I was suddenly flying through the air still holding the bike. Then I hit water. Initially my head went under but then my feet found the bottom and after a few minutes I found the edge of what I now realised was a drainage ditch. With a huge effort I hauled myself and the bike out.
Now I was completely soaked, covered in stinking mud, in the dark, and very cold. There was moonlight though and the bike seemed ok. I took off my wet clothes except cycling shorts, socks and shoes. Then I cycled under moonlight for about three hours and did dry off and to an extent warm up although I was shaking.
By the time I got back to base there was a faint light of morning. I could hardly believe I’d made it.
I might easily have died in the drainage ditch. You might think that after this my bike rides were all carefully planned. That wasn’t the case and I had other adventures but nothing as mental as that.