Passport clerk has changed my gender

CONTINUING our series featuring the holiday memories of famous people, this week TV presenter MICHAELA STRACHAN, 52, recalls her lifetime of adventures…

First holiday I can remember:

When I was 10 we went to Kenya, which in 1976 was exotic. It was a pivotal trip for me and gave me a lifelong love for Africa. It seemed so wonderful to be sitting on top of a Jeep with my parents and brother Gary looking for lions, hippos, crocodiles and elephants. Our base was the famous Treetops, which is where Princess Elizabeth was staying in 1952 when she was told her father had died and she would be queen.

First trip abroad:

We went on a package tour to Malta when I was three. Not surprisingly I don’t remember much about it but I’m told I made a lot of sandcastles and paddled in the sea.

Best school trip: I

only took one – a cruise to Denmark, which sounds very grand, but it really wasn’t. We slept in stuffy berths on the SS Uganda. For some reason, the teacher made us wear blue scarves on our heads. We looked like the cast of The Sound Of Music!

My best trip...

I have been so privileged to travel all over the world that I am a bit spoilt for choice. My best holiday is usually my last holiday, in this case Costa Rica, which was just amazing. Other highlights include seeing grizzly bears, orcas and bald eagles in British Columbia, and taking my son Ollie snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef.

... and the worst:

Fortunately I haven’t had many bad holidays but we did go on a bit of a disastrous skiing trip. It was the first time I’d ever skied and we went to Tignes in the Alps with 13 friends from the BBC. The unlucky 13! Our party suffered so many injuries – everything from a sprained knee and altitude sickness to a broken wrist and a suspected fractured skull. I was lucky I escaped injury, but I found the trip exhausting. I also remember getting hugely

GOING WILD:

Michaela, Nick and Ollie in Australia. Left: with her brother Gary in Kenya and, below, with her father and brother in Malta frustrated with the whole thing.

Dream destination:

On my bucket list is Baja California to see blue whales. I’ve never seen the largest animal in the world and think it should definitely be something I do before I die.

Favourite place:

Definitely somewhere with a mixture of wildlife, adventure and culture. Cities are not so much my thing – I always favour wild environments. I guess Kenya would be one of my favourites. If you’re into wildlife, it is definitely one of the best places to go on safari.

Perfect holiday companion:

My partner Nick and son Ollie. We travel really well together and we all love the same sort of active, busy itinerary. We’re all quite organised, easygoing, don’t mind early mornings and love outdoors.

First thing I pack:

The paperwork! We live in Cape Town and if you travel with a child aged under 18, you have to have an unabridged birth certificate stating the full names of both parents. We recently had to get the certificate updated from a handwritten document to a printed one and on the new one they spelt my name wrong and called me Michael. It has been a huge palaver to get it corrected.