On family holidays, there’s always a moment when you just want to walk away

The bags wouldn’t fit. Despite my very best efforts at suitcase Tetris, I couldn’t get all the luggage in the boot of the hire car, and that meant several bags would need stacking up between two ferociously moody girls on the back seat.

We were never supposed to be at Cape Town Airport anyway. I’d spent a week in blind, holiday rescue-mode panic, trying to salvage a trip that had been scuppered by war in the Middle East.

As reroutes go, it was a phenomenally agreeable one, but I’d just spent an overnight long-haul flight attempting to sleep next to the wriggliest, most bedtime-averse nine-year-old on the planet.

Then there was an hour’s wait in the rental car queue. And, after finally shoehorning all the unnecessary rubbish I’d begged everyone not to pack into the inadequate vehicle, we hit serious traffic. And the promised twin beds in the girls’ room at the apartment turned out to be a double, meaning five nights of guaranteed fighting.

There are points on every family holiday when every parent wants to walk away, cursing the time, effort and horrific amounts of money they’ve put into keeping everyone happy in return for absolutely zero gratitude.

With everyone exhausted, hypersensitive and resorting to gratuitous sniping at every opportunity, I was at that point. And then someone set a sausage on fire.

The flip side to that moment where you want to pack it all in, is the moment where you suddenly feel all the trouble was worth it after all. In Cape Town, that came in a Portuguese restaurant, where the girls were as tetchily awkward as possible over ordering, and my 11-year-old begrudgingly picked the chourico, correctly assuming it would be similar to chorizo.

For reasons curiously not spelled out on the menu, it came out ablaze in blue flame. She was staggered, and suddenly giddily delighted. A day of tired, vicious-tongued warring on the universe instantly evaporated. She wanted to take photos and videos to send to her friends, and totally forgot how much she hated her sister, who had spotted a lizard on the wall, and was now thoroughly in love with it.

As both of them turned moods on a hairpin, family-holiday making seemed a worthwhile pursuit again. Then “worthwhile” transformed into a life-affirming essential.

The crowds and noise outside the restaurant started to make sense, as did the vile traffic from the airport. It was the day of the Cape Town Carnival. The Portuguese restaurant was just by the side of the route, and the party atmosphere won previously embittered hearts over. This unco-operative pair suddenly became consumed by an adorable sense of joy. They somehow commandeered a balloon and started pounding along with it to the Carnival’s thumping drumbeat.

What started with a few fancy cars and fire engines evolved into fully-fledged floats and dancing troupes, and our apartment with incorrectly aligned bedding turned out to have balconies with a direct view to the parade. The girls parked themselves there for hours, cheering on rollerskating butterflies, stilt-walking giraffes and dancing pandas. “Best day ever!” they announced as the final float went past.

It certainly hadn’t been the best day ever. In fact, much of it was grimly, punishingly awful. But it’s not the irritations, tribulations and confrontations we’ll remember in years to come. It’ll be lucking in with prime position to watch Africa’s most beautiful city throwing a party. And a sausage set on fire.

Deep down, that’s the point of travelling with children. Those magic, mood-changing moments last for years as happy memories – just long enough for your kids to think taking their kids away is worth the hassle.