27 April 2006

Keep Left!

I'm happy to report that I survived driving in Australia....and more importantly, they survived me!!

There were only a few minor incidents. Actually since I've been back and dearest darling David picked me up at the airport, I been wanting to remind him that he's on the wrong side of the road. DOH! And now most of Fredericksburg is aware that if my windshield wipers are on without it raining, then OBVIOUSLY I'm turning as I've forgotten which side of the wheel is my blinker indicator!! The funniest (although not at the time) incident was as I was driving in Tuggeranong one night and because I was watching for 'roos that might be crossing the road, I didn't realise that the four lane divided road (2 lanes each way), had merged to two lane (1 each way) non-divided road. For those of you who are not Australian or have not driven in Australia, the lines dividing the lanes of on-coming traffic is not yellow, as it is in America, but white and at this particular stage was not a solid white line, but dashed white lines. For you Australians who aren't aware, in America this means that traffic is travelling the same direction. So suffice to say, I was a bit startled at the car coming out of the roundabout and on to (what I thought was) my side of the road. Panic! Don't panic, don't panic, don't panic. left side, yes indeed, I am and should be on the left side. What is this person doing?!?!?!?!??! Ahhhhh. I inch as close to the left side of the road that I could, hoping that they would stay in the right hand lane--which I was still thinking is on my side of the 4 lane road. They pass without incident and as I'm heading into the roundabout am noticing that ooops...the road was no longer divided and the other driver wasn't a lunatic, drunk, or oblivious, but were exactly where they needed to be. oops. note to self: whilst looking for kangaroos be sure to also pay attention to road signs.

:) shez

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hahaha Sherry your driving has always been way left. It was worse than mine thats why you navigated while in Australia. Thats why we were always lost to. "Turn left, No I mean right, no I mean left, whatever!!" said Sherry staring at teh map upside down!

Anonymous said...

Funny funny.:)I do remember the white-line-no-yellow-line confusion myself. How do they know when it's divided and when it isn't? Call me crazy, but I do miss roundabouts. They're very practical.