Crossing Oz with Alfonzo the bear
My first holiday
My mother took us by train from our home in Perth all the way to Adelaide to visit her best friend. I must have been about seven or eight at the time and the journey took two days. It was incredible, especially the everchanging scenery. We started with the dry desert with gangs of kangaroos hopping along and we ended up in the green fields of South Australia.
My most powerful memory of the trip was of Alfonzo the Performing Bear. Alfonzo was a small stuffed toy that I persuaded my mother to buy me from the gift shop. My younger brother Eddie and I made Alfonzo do all sorts of dangerous tricks on the train – we even dressed him in homemade paper-napkin dresses.
My first trip abroad
We emigrated from England to Perth when I was six. There were so many firsts and life in Australia was so very different from life in England. I remember one day returning home and taking a shower and finding spider legs in my hair.
First sschool trip
To the local pool aged five. I was too embarrassed to take off my underwear in front of my classmates so I swam with my knickers underneath my costume. Needless to say, the teacher later spotted my wet school uniform and I was teased for days by the other kids for ‘wetting’ my pants.
My honeymoon
In Paris, with my husband [comic actor Sacha Baron Cohen] and our daughter. It was heaven… until I stood on the scales. I haven’t met a pastry I don’t like.
Best ever holiday…
To Thailand. I travelled all over and saw jungles and beaches, rode elephants and saw temples. The people were so friendly and the food was delicious. I love it there. Although I was on my way to a nightclub in Bangkok on New Year’s Eve in 2007 when a series of bombs went off – that was frightening.
… and the worst
St Lucia. I was pregnant and got severe food poisoning and a high fever on my first day there.
Dream destination
A trip on the Orient Express, or else exploring Vietnam.
Isla Fisher is the author of Marge And The Secret Tunnel, published by Piccadilly Press, out now.