Driving abroad? Places can change before you know it: Wyn Drabble

Wyn Drabble once lived in Sydney and worked as a taxi driver. Photo / NZME

Wyn Drabble is a teacher of English, writer, public speaker and musician. He is based in Hawke’s Bay.

OPINION

I wrote this from Goulburn, New South Wales, as the experience of driving there taught me an important lesson about the pace of progress.

I lived in Sydney for nearly two decades and was even a taxi driver there for a year so know my way around the city pretty well. But the city itself didn’t come into this mission; I simply had to drive the two hours from Sydney Airport to Goulburn. Since I last did this, things have changed rapidly.

I need to tell you first that I’m what I’ll call an eyesight driver. Yes, I can read signs and I can even use Google Maps. But generally I prefer to use a combination of instinct and the position of surrounding geographical features.

If I’m aiming to drive south over the Canterbury plains, I know that I’m going the correct way if the spine of the Southern Alps is on my right and to my left things are flat. In Los Angeles I have used the same system. If I’m on one of the myriad freeways through the suburbs and to my left is flattish and to my right are mountains (San Gabriel, I think), I know I’m heading north which puts me on track for Big Joe’s Burger and Ribs Joint.

In Marrakech the Atlas Mountains can serve as a landmark but you must look out for straw-loaded donkeys on the roundabouts.

If I’m driving in Paris, that’s a rather different matter because anything can happen and usually does. You’ll manage glimpses of the Eiffel Tower but all that will really tell you is that you are definitely still in Paris. And all that car horn honking you hear is probably directed at you.

So when I picked up the rental car, I was not at all fazed about the trip. Last time I drove this route – possibly decades ago – I successfully used the Blue Mountains as my landmark.

But progress has pounced. Within a few kilometres, we were in a tunnel and no doubt a very expensive tunnel for which the toll would, for my convenience, be automatically deducted from the credit card I used to pick up the vehicle.

The tunnel went on and on and on for what I reckoned was about 100km. I later looked it up online and found, “The M5 East provides two lanes of carriageway in each direction and includes two 4km tunnels and twin 550m tunnels under the Cooks River”.

I reckon they made that up.

But the length is not really the issue here; the issue is that tunnels, by their very nature, block any view of the outside world so there is no way of spotting tell-tale landmarks and knowing where on Earth you are. Tunnels lack windows.

Eventually we emerged from the subterranean section and there, right in front of us, was, you guessed it, Big Joe’s Burger and Ribs Joint!

No, sorry, I made that up.

What followed was kilometre after kilometre (probably 100km) of what appeared to be slabs of asphalt-chipboard panels which walled the road. Granted, you could see the tips of the closest blue gums over the top so you still knew you were in Australia but without the guidance of identifying landmarks.

Yes, I know that all I had to do was get on the right road and stay on it but, to me, it’s groping in the dark if I don’t have some physical sense of where I am.

So, it wasn’t a relaxed drive and I feel I have done my duty if I offer you the following warning: don’t feel you know your way around a place because you were there years ago. Things can change rapidly.