Tina, Constanza, and I bought a car.
We had been talking about it for a while, and wanted it for a number of reasons. I had visions of myself with wavy surfer’s hair, hucking my board in the back of my jeep, and cruising off to the beach every weekend. Tina and Costanza had a visions of not lugging all her groceries and furniture back to the residence by bus. Whatever.
The day that clinched it for us was the day we tried to get to Brighton Beach. We had heard it was much better than our familiar St. Kilda beach, and it looked like it was right next to the university on the map, so we decided to try to see if it was worth the hype. Unluckily, we didn’t work out a transit plan before we left. Now, usually, the bus drivers are extremely helpful. And indeed, they did their best this day as well, but apparently Brighton is especially hard to get to. It seems that Melbourne transit (as far as we understand it--which, admittedly, is not very well) requires you to go into the city centre to get anywhere. It’s kind of an “All roads lead to Rome” thing. Anyways, after two and a half hours on the bus, we gave up and ended up at St. Kilda anyway. And then, because it takes so long to get back to the university, we left after only an hour. It felt like quite a waste of time, and we realized that since we have a very limited time here, we should really try to make the best of it.
And what is more time efficient than a new car! Or at least a used white ’95 Ford Falcon. We bought it off this Dutch couple that had finished traveling in Australia, and were heading off to Thailand. They had named the car “Ollie” short for Oliver, which I love. Our little Ollie.
We checked out a couple cars before we decided on Ollie, but he seemed the best for several reasons. He is big enough to hold all of us and any stuff we would need for road trips. The trunk is big enough that if you fold down the back seat, you can fit three people in the back to sleep. And, because it was travelers that were selling it, they also needed to get rid of all their camping stuff. So we got mattresses, a three person tend (so, sleeping room for 6 in total), a stove, cutlery and dishes, a bunch of maps, and an Esky (cooler) thrown in for free. It was a pretty sweet deal. We’re still happy with it.
We were pleased with ourselves when we decided on Ollie, and I was pleased with myself the day I went to pick it up, and managed to find the roads office, and properly get through all the legal paperwork. The couple were very nice, and explained all the things that needed to happen, as well as all the things I would need to do to sell it again in a year’s time. They were great. The only thing was, on the way back to their place, they informed me that they had not filled up the gas tank. The light was on, but they assured me they had gone almost 40 K with it on before, and it should be fine to get me to the next gas station. No worries.
They pulled over, handed me the keys, wished me good luck, and left. I got into the drivers seat, and prepared myself mentally for driving in downtown Melbourne, on the opposite side of the road. I had driven about 3 times before on the opposite side of the road, once to test drive this very car. But, that had been on the roads around the university, the majority of which had a speed limit of 20 Km an hour. So I was nervous.
As soon as I tried to pull out into the lane, I demonstrated my inexperience by turning on windshield wipers instead of signaling. This happened several more times in the 15 minutes that I drove before the engine started to feel like it was going to stall. And it’s an automatic, so stalling is kind of an issue. I remembered that it’s low on gas. Great. I pulled over onto a side street to park (hello again, windshield wipers!) and found myself wandering around outside of Melbourne university.
Now remember, I attend Monash university, not Melbourne. This is the equivalent to going to SFU and finding myself on the outskirts of UBC. Melbourne Uni turns out to be just as much of a maze as UBC (although, it’s a prettier campus). I wandered around through it asking various people for directions to a petrol station, getting various responses, and following most of them until I found myself again lost in the campus. I passed by the same volunteers for Amnesty International three times (“No, I’m not interested--I’m only here for a year, and I’m a member at home. Could you point me in the direction of the nearest gas--uhh, petrol station? You’re not from around here either? Shit…”) but eventually found myself at the visitor’s information booth for the university. This time I acquired a map in addition to verbal instructions, and with that I managed to find my way to the elusive shell station on Lygon street.
I asked the man at the window for a gas can because my car had run out of gas. He gave a sigh, and said they were expensive--$20. He said that a funnel was an extra $14. I declined the funnel, filled the tank, and made my way back to the car.
Almost immediately I regretted not buying the funnel (stop shaking your head, Dad). The gas can was bulky and it was difficult to pour the gas into the opening on the side of the car. Also, the opening in the car had a flap that I guess is to keep gas from coming up out of the tank. It would not let fluid down unless it was propped open. The flap was approximately the diameter of the funnel the guy had shown me... In the end, I managed to use a cooking spoon from the camping gear to prop it open so that the fuel would stop spilling on my foot, and I managed to get about three litres in. At this point, not even the three-lane round-a-bout nor the no-right-turns-on-this-street sign (“Oh shit, sorry! Sorry!”) could keep me from returning to the shell station to completely re-fuel.
I was ready, once again, to take our new car home. The only trouble now was driving through Melbourne. I don’t particularly like driving through any city, but Melbourne was especially challenging. It’s the other side of the road of course, but it also one of those cities with trams that run on the road. I know there are others (San Francisco, for instance) but I have never had experience driving in one. Maybe every place that has a tram has similar rules, or maybe it’s just Melbourne, but they have a seriously messed up turning system. In some intersections, indicated by signs that are definitely not big enough, if you want to turn right (the “hard” turn… it would be like turning left at home), you have to make your way all the way over to past the left lane, sit there in the middle of the intersection, and then, when it’s clear, make your way across both sides of traffic. Like, you have to shoulder check, and watch out for everyone driving the same way as you AND everyone on the other side of the street driving the opposite way. And the trams. It was wild. Needless to say, I just made three left turns instead of one right, and it was fine. But I still remember trying to comprehend it the first time I saw the sign, and how it completely blew my mind. Ridiculous.
In the end, I made it home safely. We all took turns looking through the camping gear, sitting in the driver seat, and playing with the glove compartment. And that night, the dinner conversation was centred around all the places we could go with our new friend Ollie the Ford Falcon.
