Tag: cars

She got married and I shared a roadtrip.

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I watched one of my best friends marry a guy is a smart vest on the weekend. Tessa and I grew up together, fighting over putt putt golf sticks, fishing and pulling each other’s hair.

She never looked so beautiful as when she walked towards the bloke she’s spent the last 5.5 years with. I cried like an old man on the gin to see her happiness and excitement. My school pals and I giggled over shed party tales.We’ve come a long way from the luscious hills around Kyogle.

Then, her brother, another mate and a guy who moves around a guitar with more smoothness than a prestige car salesgirl, sang this to them.

Honey you are a rock
Upon which I stand
And I come here to talk
I hope you understand

That Green Eyes
Yeah the spotlight
Shines upon you

And how could
Anybody
Deny you

I came here with a load
And it feels so much lighter
Now I’ve met you

Honey you should know
That I could never go on
Without you

Green Eyes

Honey you are the sea
Upon which I float
And I came here to talk
I think you should know

That Green Eyes
You’re the one that I wanted to find
And anyone who tried to deny you,
Must be out of their minds

‘Cause I came here with a load
And it feels so much lighter since I met you

Honey you should know,
That I could never go on
Without you

Green Eyes.. Green Eyes..
Ohohoh…

Honey you are a rock
Upon which I stand.

It was pretty beautiful. Groomie told his new wife that he’d found what he was looking for. I even managed to hog the limelight for a few moments with a speech that kindly refrained from mentioning the more embarrassing moments of Tessa’s youth. Then they cut the cake. The bride did not throw the bouquet, leaving the guests with at least one less injury to contend with. And we danced, and drank red wine. It was marvellous.

The experience got me thinking about love and why we choose to share our lives with others. I’ve been a love cynic for a few years now, riding solo, desperately clinging to my independence and swatting men away like an opal miner does a fly. That’s not completely true, but we’ll go with the black and white version of events of the past few years. Bottom line, I’ve spent a fair few hours alone on many different buses.

The single life treats me well. Friends are more accessible and weekend stories deliciously juicy (please note this does not refer to promiscuity, but rather a liberated view of sleeping arrangements). I figured out a way to lie with pillows surrounding my body so it feels exactly like someone is cuddling me. Exactly the same. No that’s a lie, too, but I stopped worrying about being alone. The freedom is intoxicating and the lifestyle can be more fun than hosing someone who just donned their best dress for the races.

And the single life makes great blog fodder. But I feel changes are afoot.

Last weekend when I checked the Greyhound website I imagined myself nestled up with my iPod gnawing through a bag of carrots and sipping a Corona. I knew I would sleep well and arrive refreshed in Brisbane. Undoubtedly a story about drunk passengers would come up in the wedding banter later on in the weekend. Ultimately it would be an adventure.

Or would it?

Suddenly, an 11-hour bus trip didn’t seem much of an adventure or a risk anymore. I’m more at home on a public transport than on my couch, which can be awkward for other passengers.

I decided the real adventure would be to ask someone to come along, to push an entirely different comfort zone.

My co-pilot on the 20-hour return trip was someone I’d met just a few weeks ago. I hoped he would be good company, that he wouldn’t mind driving so long in the senseless heat without air conditioning in my banged up old car. And I really prayed that he’d do some of the driving.

We stopped for a dip in the Condamine river, fully clothed in an attempt to stave off the heat. We held hands in the car. I was happy. The trip passed far too quickly.

The road trip made my bus ride look like a day watching the campdraft compared to a night of barefoot dancing with friends.

Let’s see where this new adventure goes. I hope it will be cheeky and that my broad grin continues to look so foolish.

Just how excited can one person get?

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You do not have to be navigating a road like this in a backwater in Peru feel like you’re on an adventure.

I’m sitting in my cosy flat in southwest Qld and the most exciting thing that crossed my desk in the last half an hour was a tiny black spider. But I am chomping at the bit, adrenalin coursing through my body keeping me awake long after I should have snuggled up with my pillows.

Today’s jaunty eagerness is not a new phenomenon out here in the bush. Instead of some city folk’s prediction that life without Turkish restaurants would be dull – and some people still ask me how we fill a newspaper every week – I find this quaint town teeming with hair-raising stories and excitement.

The curious aspect, and please bear in mind that I now have little idea what other people think is curious or fascinating, is that my enthusiasm for the tiniest events has skyrocketed.

A blowfly could miss a wing beat and I’d wonder why. Perhaps it would be something to do with the new flour they’re using at the bakery. Or it could be connected to the power pole that fell down on Saturday night and took out the power to my rival paper’s office.

As I roamed the streets of Charleville today, searching in vain for a person on a bicycle so I could take a photo of them to go alongside a riveting article I had written on bike racks, I realised my mentality had shifted from curious photographer to ruthless hunter. I might as well have been searching for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, for the enthusiasm I had for seeking out non-existent bikers was consuming, uncontrollable. And then when I saw a kid on a bike I rushed for the camera as if someone had bought out a block of dark chocolate after a night with Shiraz. I snapped away at the scruffy bikers, who wore their pants around their lower thighs with pride, as if I’d just been ordered to take a few snaps of Hugh Jackman with his shirt off.

I’m finding my enthusiasm for things is often disproportionate here.

My heart flutters a little when someone talks about anything with the tiniest bit of controversy. Five palms fronds came down a storm on Sunday and I maintained eye contact with the fallen branches for longer than I would with a man I wanted to bed. Maybe there’s a story in that, I always wonder about these trivial events, with a slightly depraved sense of desperation. Then I catch myself. Were you really counting those palm branches on the road, Penny?

Tonight I saw a man my own age in the bar and my clenched grip on the bottle of Jägermeister I was purchasing slipped slightly. I wonder what would have happened to the bottle if we’d made eye contact.

I love this child-like development. It’s made me happy. And sometimes I catch myself staring out the window at the utes cruising past and I feel terribly contented.

I reckon it’s the connection with people that makes me so fascinated by the little things. Life certainly works at a slower pace here and I’m coming to terms with my dearth of perspective.

The only concern is whether I’ll wet my pants when I arrive in Birdsville tomorrow for an event is definitely exciting. This is an event that would, even under pre-Charleville conditions see me running around in shirtless excitement

It’s the Birdsville races, the Melbourne cup of the outback and one of Australia’s most iconic calendar events. I’m going there. Tomorrow.

In a helicopter. And I have not been this excited since I found out the price of rice liquor in China.

I’ll be sleeping in my mate’s pink swag under a chequered blanket of outback stars beside a creek. There will even be backpackers there!

I have dreamed of going to these races since I was a child and my current mood would rival a gaggle of hungry geese.

I’m hanging to see 6000 people flood into a town with just one pub and a usual population of about 100 people. And I’m keen to see whether the crowd can get through 10,000 pies. The boxing tent should be a ripper and watching the revellers try to get through 30 tonnes of liquor should be a riot. I heard a whisper today about yabbie races and naked camel races, which interest me enormously. There’ll be some horse races, too.

But most of all I cannot wait to see just how excited this little journalist can get.

Mechanical problems make my day.

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Sometimes I wish my ute would break down so that I can watch the reactions of the folk in my town. Today, the run-around-like-an-emu-on-heat deadline day, was not a time when I thought about indulging in whimsical anthropological experiments.

But my Nissan fancied some fun.

It happened as I approached the busiest intersection in town. I stopped obediently at the give way sign and was mid-glance, needlessly checking for traffic, when the engine shuddered, coughed, spat and died. It was an all-over sensation for my truck, which rocked from side to side like spring-loaded pretend sheep in a children’s playground. I know Alfred street, Charleville is no Champs Elysees, but it’s still the busiest intersection in town and there were plenty of folk kicking around to stare at my cranky car.

It was a fine moment, people everywhere, a useless ute and a deadline hanging over me as a badly cut fringe would.

Luckily I have been in this situation many times before. I have a deep-seated history with mechanically inept cars.

I should have known better, frankly. The same incident happened last Tuesday, in the same car, but on the second-biggest intersection in town. Last week I had called my mechanic brother in a fluster when the ute conked out. It was a Tuesday last week too, as I struggled with the same deadline that causes the bags under my eyes to sag like the bottom of an old cossie. My brother Rob works miracles with cars. Just being on the phone to him last week cured the issue with the choke and the car rose from the dead.

I believe in miracle fixes. It’s part of my mechanical knowledge – problems go away if you give them time. And never go to the mechanic before you have to, that’s another of my favourite car adages.

But despite the fact that I was sitting in a defunct car in the middle of an intersection, this situation really shines. I flicked on the hazards, alerting the handful of other motorists that I was in trouble and watched them cruise past me at a snails pace, checking out all the gory details as they passed. I could tell my ute’s mechanical failures would be laughed at over a bottle of Pinot for many afternoons. I adopted a maniacal laugh and desperately tried to start the car again.

There was no aggression from the cars I was inconveniencing. No one honked their horns and most cars waited behind me for at least two minutes before they even bothered to lazily reverse and move past. As they were checking me out a few said ‘are you oh-kay’ with wide mouths. It was quite touching.

I reckon a gang of scooters would have mowed me down if the same thing happened in the city.

Someone even opened my passenger door and asked me if I needed a push around the corner. Of course I don’t want a bloody push, I want this thing to drive around the corner, I would have taken the bike if I wanted to push something, I quietly ranted in my head.

In fact I had been within a whisper of taking the bike when I realised it has an over-inflated front tyre and that was all the excuse I needed to avoid saddle soreness. If I had of tried harder to recaptur the love of riding I possessed when exploring the karst mountains in southern China I would not have ended up at the corner of Alred and Wills streets with a crowd of onlookers thanking their lucky stars that they weren’t me.

The idea of calling my Jesus-like brother occurred to me again, but I defied the thought in a moment of determined independence, recalling how I had fixed the issue with the battery the week before last without consulting either of my brothers.

Although my oldest brother is fairly useless mechanically so he would have only been good for telling me it’s ok to break a detox in times like these.

I worked the key again, flogging the starter motor while I provided a little comedy show for the crew gathered in the main street. Finally, after a 15 minute interval that passed slower than an ice-cap melt I spluttered around the corner and moved down the street with the ute’s revs bouncing about like a camel being chased by a kangaroo.

As I shuddered up the street the blokes outside the barber’s shop clapped and cheered as if I was approaching the finish line after a gruelling triathlon. I mentally bowed to them, feeling as if I’d contributed a street-theatre vibe to the quiet Tuesday streetscape. I honked the horn for good measure, in case any of the local businesses were unaware of the local journo’s mechanical issues.

Next time I’ll take the bike and I’ll let you know how the town reacts when I fall off and graze my elbow.

Let the adventure begin.

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Driving out of BrisVegas this morning after saying a final farewell to an era, a seven-hour abyss stretched before me. I was a mixed bag of emotions, but I had plenty of time to sort the Wizz Fizz from the snakes on the way to my folks’ place at Tamworth.

Herein lies the brilliance of a road trip. Time is your friend. I could indulgently ponder saying goodbye to Brisbane, the great mates I had there and other important issues, such as whether tequila shots would be ok with limes or if it definitely has to be lemons. Of course, due to the driving I could not test out the limes versus lemons issue, but I could certainly think about it at length.

I’m a big fan of car trips. It’s a product of my childhood. Every school holidays Ma and Pa would lug my brothers and me to Sydney or Cowra or Bundaberg or Pindari Dam. They would go anywhere, as long as it meant at least eight hours a day in the Commodore.

Cricket season was the best, at least according to my Dad. We would start the driving about 20 minutes before the first ball and stop for sangers when the cricketers were called in for lunch. The cricket commentators were great company.

Sometimes we’d arrive at a location, park a few streets away and listen to a nail-gripping finish, all packed in the car like prisoners being transported to a new facility. At least it felt like prison to a young girl keen to play with her dolls and get away from her stinky brothers after eight hours of noogies.

Today, there was no cricket. But I managed to get through with help from Triple J and a bit of ABC Radio National. There was one rather interesting radio documentary about why humans have hair and why women get it waxed. It was incredibly interesting. And the best part was I could dedicate the entire stretch between Tenterfield and Gen Innes, which takes about an hour, to thinking about why a woman should or should not get a Brazilian wax. Fascinating stuff.

I had time to think about the mammoth clean we did at the house yesterday. Ten hours of wall scrubbing wore Shorn, Amber and I to thin shadows of our former selves. Today I marvelled at the sense of achievement you get from cleaning and Lowry’s ability to turn anything into a game.

Cleaning the fridge, for example, involved seeing how far away you could be from the Westinghouse and still stick a magnet on it through Frisbee-like throws.

A pile of rubbish on its way to the tip becomes Junk-enga.

Reflecting on those sorts of shenanigans and the underlying optimism took up a good 20 minutes.

The scenery and sunset also impressed me. Of course, it’s no Tasmania but the area around Warwick is stunning as it looks out to the ocean. The shadow of Bluff Rock near Tenterfield was eerie. Luscious pastures turned to burnt brown grass like a game of Wheel of Fortune as I meandered south. Further into the New England hinterland the lanky poplar trees in a stunning autumn-yellow reminded me of my time at university Armidale. Recalling the goon-fuelled shenanigans took up at least an hour.

I even drove past an entire field of sunflowers. That was like staring at a sea of smiles.

Stopping in for a few cuppa at the Driver Reviver, that really put a smile on my face. I mean, it’s tea and it’s free. Wow!

And my car, a 22-year vintage Holden Apollo, she purred down the highway, pleased to be unleashed from the shackles of city driving.

The whole trip was lovely really; exciting, thought-provoking and relaxing. It was all of those good things until I was about 50 kilometres from Tamworth. That’s when time stood still.

I busted open my second bag of carrots (emergency rations) and called my Mum. She was getting dinner ready. “Anything you’d like,” she asked me, excitedly. “Yeah, maybe some tuna and steamed vegetables,” I replied.

“Well you’ll just get what you’re given, Pen,” she says. Looks like it’s oven-roasted spuds.

So after saying goodbye to my mates and a few hours behind the wheel, I drove into Ma and Pa’s. Dad came out in his boxer shorts and directed me into the yard as if my car was a Jumbo Jet. “Penny! Welcome home,” he yelled. I was so pleased to see him.

I know in this adventure, indeed in our life, it’s all about the journey, not the destination. I know that, but seeing my folks tonight put the field of sunflowers to shame.

Garage Sale Man strikes again.

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It is unusual for me to be making moolah on a Saturday. Often, I’ll hand over some coin in one meaningless pursuit or another. Last week it was internet IQ tests. I won’t be seeing that ten bucks ever again.

Today is an exception. The much-hyped garage sale, my first foray into getting people to pay for old junk that I would have had to pay to have removed, became a reality. It was beyond brilliant. I might as well have hoodwinked a man I liked into buying me dinner at my favourite Turkish restaurant.

The moeny was a boon, I won’t lie about that.

Passing stuff around to the young guys up the street, for instance, who were delighted to be getting a bargain on the bedside tables that were clearly unnecessary to their existence, but which made them happy – that’s a much nicer feeling than the soul-sucking Ikea experience.

I was hoping, however, that at least one good story would come from the sale.

My leisurely attitude towards the sale, which featured me going straight from a party, without sleep, to managing the money tin, that’s an interesting story. But not one my co-saler is prepared to laugh about yet. Too soon, apparently.

The best moment of the day came as we were closing up. My bed, and some much-needed shut-eye were just moments away. The junk that no-one wanted, the real crapola, was back in boxes, ready to go to the guilt-free tip, Vinnes.

Then it happened.

Three ladies stroll in casualy and decide they want to examine every garment in the bags we have just packed away. For half an hour they rummaged with a vigour that I usually reserve for pushing flower girls out of the way at wedding when the bouquet is in the air.

In the midst of their does-this-skirt-match-my-hair banter, a serious punter saunters into the sale.

His garage-sale-ish attitude was as obvious as two people enjoying some hanky panky on a camping trip. As if recalling a tactical military operation, he tells me how he scoped us inside the yard sitting around, saw a bookshelf and then, BOOM, spotted the garage sale sign. He was so delighted with himself, just to be walking around our yard full of junk. It was an impressive attitude.

And, I couldn’t help it. I pounced.

“That tv cabinet is going for ten bucks,” I told him, of the eyesore that we were having enormous difficulty getting off our hands.

He walked around it slowly. It was like a guitarist checking out a new pair of strings, an utterly unnecessary amount of attention was lavished upon the task. “I just don’t know what I’d do with it,” he says, sounding very interested in the ugly cabinet.

“And it’s just so big.”

I waited, patiently, for I knew this guy had ten bucks in his wallet that he really did not want anymore.

“Ok, sold,” he screams at me, eyes feverish.

To say that I saw the sucker coming from two doors down, is an understatement. He also purchased a fax machine, a few books and an empty plastic water bottle, for good measure.

And with the finish line so clearly in my sight, for the annoying girls had left with a brilliant bounty of old clothes, the story I had been waiting for arrived.

The guy backs into the driveway in his matchbox car. I am not even sure how this dude got his lanky frame behind the wheel, so tiny was his vehicle. And the challenge of getting the huge tv cabinet home with only the shirt on his back, the tiny car and his wits; that was not going to be a problem.

In fact, that was the challenge Garage Sale Man had been waiting for.

In the blink of an eye a blanket was tossed on the roof of the car and these guys had chucked the tv cabinet on top, seriously lowering the vehicle to the ground. Tie-down straps were produced from the garage-sale section of his car.

Garage Sale Man is always prepared for a yard sale. He searches out opportunities to get crappy furniture at very low prices and to create significant transportation problems for himself.

I was highly impressed by the tie-down shenanigans. But the real glory came when they had to leave.

“How do we get in the car,” Garage Sale Man’s less garage-sale-ish mate asks him, somewhat uselessly, after trying unsuccessfully to open the door for about a minute. Yes, the doors had been tied shut with the tie-down straps.

Garage Sale Man did not even shrug. Nonchalantly, as if the situation was as ordinary as getting home from work and flicking on the telly, he tells his friend “it’ll have to be Duke’s of Hazzard style, mate.”

He jumped through that window as if there was a pot of gold on the other side.

Oh he was so pleased with the whole situation, grinning from ear to ear. A cheap, crappy cabinet and a door that wouldn’t open were all he wanted on this fine Saturday.

Non-Garage-Sale Man, he was rather put out and also a bit plumper than Garage Sale Man. I was almost in hysterics as he struggled to push himself through that window. Just now, I’m still smiling, wondering how he got out.

So we may have rid ourselves of plenty of junk today. And I deprived myself of some sleep. Hey, we even made a tidy little profit.

But the real winner was Garage Sale Man and his red matchbox car. As soon as he drove out, honking and smiling, I closed the gate.

Nothing and no-one can beat Garage Sale Man  on these occasions.

A hoon? Me? Maybe.

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Guys with turbo-charged cars. They’re tossers, right? Well, actually I’m going to jump off my pedestal and side with the hoons on this one.

A great friend of mine, let’s call him Nick, because that’s his name, was on a hunt for some new wheels recently. I was horrified when he started gushing over a Subaru WRX he was thinking about forking out for. It even had one of those grates on the bonnet. So uncool.

“Think of the environment,” I pleaded. He did look sheepish, but admitted his fascination with the car had deep-seated roots. It must be one of those boyhood things the guys cultivate while the girls are learning to cook and sew.

I was not convinced. “C’mon you’d be much better suited to a van.”

“Think of the camping trips.”

Still not swayed, I launched the full offensive on the spectacle he’d make of himself. “You’ll look like a tosser,” I reminded him. His best interests, of course, were at the heart of my tirade.

“A complete tool.”

It was a bit mean, but I thought my cause was worthy. I was fighting the good fight against these offensive cars. They’re so noisy. So bloody bad for the environment. And, comparing muffler sizes, really, it’s not cool.

I see the merit in my slightly older-style car which offers a more sedate driving style. Hills are a challenge, I admit, but it’s just so lovely to get a close view of things as I dawdle past. How nice to be able to count the sections of sidewalk, instead of the colours of cars. It’s the little things.

Still, Nick got his dream car.

And he has been a happy man with those keys in his hot little palm.

At first take I had to temper my hard-nosed opinion, just slightly. It looked more like a Beamer than one of those horrid white sedans with an utterly unnecessary blow-off value. Surprisingly, it was not even that loud.

Still, it was fun to have a dig at Nick’s car. “You’re such a yuppie,” I would tell him, hypocritcially, as I luxuriated in the passenger seat, pleased to be in a car that was made this side of the Sydney Olympics.

Today, however, all of my reservations about the WRX, except it’s enviro score – which still shocks me, were blown away with one nippy burst of the turbo.

Within seconds of placing my hands on the steering wheel, my inner hoon started agitating toward the accelerator.

Oh, the power! What a thrill. Whipping around a corner was almost like bungee jumping. My pulse quickened and an involunatry grin spread across my face. The rush. The speed. The pick-up. The grip. Oh dear, I had become what I had loathed.

Or perhaps I was just broadening my perspective, I bargained with myself.

I must add here that Nick even complimented me on my driving: “you go allright in a manual, Penny,” he said, slightly shocked by my enthusiasm for his demonic car. That was all the encouragement I needed! He even called me a hoon. The two-older-brothers-and-no-sisters dynamic emerges yet again.

So, I’ve fallen in love with a sports car. I anticipate I will probably dream about rally driving tonight. And yet my old 1990 model beast is showing no signs of spluttering her last splutter anytime soon.

Until she does, I’ll continue to call WRX drivers douchebags and I’ll speak at length about their exorbidant fuel usage. It’s the only way.

On the inside, however, my inner hoon will continue to lust after the gutsy car with its fancy volume knobs on the steering wheel.

Photo by Josh Miller/CNET.