Mystery Travel - It's a thing.

Detailed itineraries and well-researched destinations used to reign supreme – until now.

Gone are the days when travellers would spend hours (or days) planning for a trip to a well-researched city or country, map out restaurants and activities, and print pages-long itineraries with schedules, addresses, and even menu options.

Many travellers are now seeking a new way to have an adventure, and they are ready to board a plane to the unknown, literally.

A new trend, “mystery travel”, encourages holidaymakers to embrace the unknown and hop on an exciting journey to a city or country they may have never heard of.

A curious Simon Barnett and James Daniels asked have you ever done a mystery break?

Christine gave them way more than they expected.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Simon Barnett and James Daniels Afternoons
podcast from News Talk ZB.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Christine, Hi, Hi.

Speaker 3 (00:15):
Good afternoon. Hey, I've got a real doozy for you. Yes,
our local supermarket was doing a big win all these
competitions and enter the drawer and put your supermarket voucher in.
This is twenty two years ago, so it was the
local Peck and Save, and they had all these fantastic
trips that you could win, and a couch and all

(00:38):
sorts of sporting things and anyhow, it was turning out
to be my fortieth birthday and I got this weird
phone call that said I've won a prize and could
I ring this number back? And I thought, ah, somebody's
pulling my tit here. I haven't won anything, so I
ignored it. I ignored that call, and they kept leaving

(00:59):
these messages same person. So I thought, oh, I'll go
to supermarket the following week, and I thought, oh, I
wonder if it's true I never won anything. So I
marched up to the customer services desk. I said, oh, look,
my name's you know, Christine, and there's a silly message
on my phone. And I think somebody's playing a joke

(01:20):
on me. They said, oh, and I said, They said,
I won a major prize, and I'm thinking, oh, I've
won a year's supply of toilet paper or something.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
It was good during COVID.

Speaker 3 (01:35):
Yeah, yeah, no, but we're talking twenty two years ago.
So how it transpires, and I've won this mystery week
because there was trips to Disneyland into the Gold Coast,
but I won a mystery weekend trip, so I felt fantastic.
So I pick up my prize and I get this
voucher thing and I'm heading home and tell my husband

(01:56):
and my son and my daughter. At the time, they're
all saying, can we go? Can we go? And I
said no. I said, I've already decided who's going. I'm
going to be forty.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
You took your husband.

Speaker 3 (02:08):
No, I did not take him at all, No way,
bloody Now, I was not taking him.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Is he still your husband?

Speaker 3 (02:18):
I ditched him, and my son wanted to go, my
daughter and I said, no, I'm going to. Well, as
it turns out, I took a very dear friend to me.
She was turning sixty, and I thought, well, these are
one hundred good reasons why we could have a girl's weekend.
Very good, And why didn't.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
You take your husband though it's a romantic mystery girl,
simon let it go.

Speaker 3 (02:40):
No, no, I didn't want to have a romantic weekend
with him. He had no more romance in them than
fly to the Moon. So anyhow I ended up taking
what to everybody else would have thought, no way, would
you take your father's girlfriend. My dad was married, but
he had this lovely lady that had been in his

(03:03):
life and she was turning sixty, so I thought, I'll
take her.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
So who is she is? She is sher father's father's girlfriend.

Speaker 3 (03:12):
She'd been I hadn't. Dad had introduced me to her
when I was only twenty one years of age, and
ere I was, you know, turning forty. For nineteen years.
I've known her and she was a lovely lady. So
I ended up taking her. We get to the airport,
and back in those days, you walked up to the

(03:33):
counter and you could say on the thing where you
didn't want to go. And I didn't want to go
to the North Island because we're in the North Island, right,
So we got sent to Nelson. So we bought this
little beata plane, you know, turbo prop, and off we
go to Nelson and we at the wine tours because

(03:54):
she drank and I didn't, So I drove and she drank,
and we went the Vinyan doors, We went to the markets,
we went and hit the shops, we went to the restaurants,
and we extended it for a couple of extra days.
You could extend it.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
So what a great trip.

Speaker 3 (04:16):
And we went to Terry Terry.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
Or beautiful spot. Yeah, camp there for years, beautiful. Did
you did your husband resent you for not taking him?

Speaker 3 (04:25):
No, not at all. He had no more interest in
going than fly to the moon. He thought it was
a great opportunity to do boys stuff without me.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
Christine, what about your father's girlfriend. Was your father estranged
from your mother at the time? Is that what happened?

Speaker 3 (04:42):
No, they were still very much married.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
When you say girlfriend, you mean just like literally having
no no girlfriend.

Speaker 3 (04:51):
No, but he's the claner, you know.

Speaker 2 (04:53):
So I'm on this weekend with you, so I have
to know. Was it was it your dad's Was it
a like as mistress or something?

Speaker 3 (05:04):
Yes? Yes?

Speaker 2 (05:06):
And or didn't you feel horrible for your mother?

Speaker 3 (05:11):
No? No, no, no, no, no love lost there?

Speaker 2 (05:16):
But so your dad is bonking this woman and you've
gone away with her, and your poor mums stuck. What
you can't say? Bonking?

Speaker 3 (05:26):
No? It turned out my long story, and I won't
get into it. But she had been a great She
was more my mother than my own mother.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
Was, right, Okay?

Speaker 3 (05:41):
Yes, and Michael kids called her grandma.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
Well, what that's that is a will wind weekend geon.
I'm exhausted after that story, Christine.

Speaker 3 (05:54):
But I'll tell you what the clinger is here is.
So I divorced my husband about three years after.

Speaker 2 (06:03):
That, And don't tell me he ended up with the mistress.

Speaker 3 (06:07):
No, no, no, it gets better better. So I was
on my own for about ten years, and I found
out that my husband had been cheating and had other
children I didn't know about.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
It seems to go around in your family, Christine, keep going, Yes.

Speaker 3 (06:27):
So the marriage went west and I was on my
own for about ten years, and I met a lovely
man who turned out to be a pilot.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
Right and what you went to one a mystery weekend
with him and he flew the plane.

Speaker 3 (06:45):
No, he worked for in New Zealand. And we have
been together for nearly twelve years and married for six
that is terrific.

Speaker 2 (06:58):
That's a great that's a great end to that story.
You deserve that after your husband cheated on you.

Speaker 3 (07:04):
So there's a silver lining in every out. And my
parents both past now and so he said's mistress, So
you know.

Speaker 2 (07:15):
Yeah, wow, Well we're all sort of we need all
of riding. A cup of tin and a lie down
and a cigarette.

Speaker 3 (07:23):
I'm going home for an internette.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
Good Christine, Thank you for livening up our day.

Speaker 3 (07:29):
Oh no, you guys make me laugh every afternoon when
I leave school, I switch on and listen to you.

Speaker 2 (07:35):
Oh well you've made us laugh. Christine, thank you very much.
Southern text me coming in here too. Oh my gosh,
listening to this is hilarious. What a story. Keep this
lady on. This woman needs her own slot every week.
Another textas saying, I think all the listeners are on
the edge of their seats. Tell me about it. How
is a mystery weekend? All Right? News Talks EDB

Speaker 1 (07:55):
For more from Simon Barnett and James Daniels afternoons, listen
live to News Talks EDB, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.