Last Thursday, the host parents I am staying with had to visit Melbourne, a four-hour car ride from their farm, for personal business. Departing at 6:30 a.m. to make a 10:30 a.m. appointment, they asked Lise, my fellow WWOOFer and me to drive the kids to school. Sounds simple enough, but not so when the country drives on the opposite side of the road from both me and Lise, who is from France.

I think the best way to describe my first driving experience down under is in a theatrical dialogue. Please enjoy the epic tale that is my first driving experience in Australia.

Characters

Bobbi: American driver accustomed to automatic mobiles (right-side of the road driver)

Lise: French driver accustomed to manual automobiles (right-side of the road driver)

Karl: 14-year-old Australian school boy

Maedy: 9-year-old Australian school girl

Konrad: 4-year-old Australian kinder boy

It’s 8:10 a.m., Thursday in a small farm house located in the country-side of Victoria, Australia. Three children and two twenty-something WWOOFers, looking after the kids for the day, walk outside with backpacks, lunch bags and a scooter in hand to a grey Ford Falcon from the 1980s. The five must drive 30 minutes to the closest town, where the three children attend three separate schools. Living in the valley, the five must travel up a mountain and back down through curving roads similar to that shown in high-end car commercials.

-Curtains open-

Lise: Bobbi, can you drive the car? I’m not good with automatic.

Bobbi: Sure, but I need you guys to tell me where to go. (Bobbi walks to the left-side of the Ford Falcon and opens the door.) Shit. You guys are going to have to tell me which side to drive on too.

(Bobbi walks to the ride side, enters the car and ignites the engine. Maedy and Karl enter the back seat and help Conrad into his car seat, centered. Lise enters the front passenger’s seat on the left side. Surrounding the driver’s side are dangling crosses and pictures of Catholic saints.)

Lise: Are you sure you’re ok?

Bobbi: Yea, we should be fine. (She backs up the car slowly and drives down a steep, dirt driveway until the car tires hit asphalt.) Ok, now which side?

Lise: The left. (She points out the front window of the car)

Bobbi: (Attempts to make “L’s” with her thumb and pointer fingers on both hands and follows the hand that makes a correct “L.”) Alright, now just go straight?

Karl: Yea, I’ll tell you turn when you can’t go any further.

(The car travels 40 km/h along a narrow, two-way, black road without lines on it.)

Lise: You can go faster.

Karl: The speed limit’s a hundred.

(They travel on a blank, black road accelerating from 60 km/h to 100 km/h and back down at each bend in the road for about ten minutes until the reach the end of the road where they can only turn left or right.)

Karl: Turn left here.

Bobbi: Alright. (She swings her left hand down and the windshield wipers motion back and fourth.) What? (She looks down to see where click to turn on the car’s left-hand blinkers. The knob is on her right side by the window.)

(The left turn puts them on a wider road with proper lining and road signs, but still in amongst farm land and still 100 km/h. The first opposing vehicle approaches, a white SUV. Bobbi slows down and leans the car left.)

Lise: Stay on the road. Stay on the road. Stay on the road. (She says in a mild tone.)

(They continue to school swerving around mountain bends with no barriers on the side, just a straight drop down if the car happens to go to far to the left.)

Konrad: I’m from Ice Age 3. (He says as he plays with plastic figurines.)

Maedy: I’m a girl cat. (She says with a pretend female voice different from her usual female voice.)

(Another opposing vehicle approaches, this time a tractor trailer with logs stacked on the back of it.)

Lise: Stay on the road. Stay on the road. Stay on the road. (She says, this time more persistent with each plea.)

Karl: Up here you do a burnout. (He says as the car reaches a u-turn type angle.)

Bobbi: I can’t even stay in the lane. (She reaches for the scan button on the radio and the car swerves to the left.)

Lise: Stay on the road. Stay on the road. Stay on the road. (She says in a tone next to yelling.)

(Konrad and Maedy continue to play in the back seat as Bobbi keeps up the pace, then decelerates dramatically at any minor bend in the road or introduction of opposing vehicles until the five finally reach civilization.)

Lise: It’s 80 km/h now. (She says pointing at the white signs with 8-0 printed in the middle of the outline of a red circle.) The police are very strict.

(The speed limit drops from 80 km/h to 60 km/h to 40 km/h as the five approach their destinations.)

Bobbi: Karl, you need to tell us where to turn.

Karl: Alright, I will. Stay straight.

(Five minutes pass.)

Lise: Karl, are we close?

Karl: Turn there. (He says as the their car passes the road he is pointing to.) You can turn up here.

Bobbi: (She pauses and swings her left hand down and turns the windshield wipers on.) Shit. (She quickly swings her right hand down turning on the cars right-hand blinker as the windshield wipers continue to swipe the dry glass. She turns.)

Lise: You’re on the wrong side of the road. You’re on the wrong side of the road. You’re on the fucking wrong side of the road. (She says, this time in a loud tone.)

Bobbi: Uh oh. (She quickly drives the car to the left side of the road.)

Lise: Excuse my French, as the expression goes.

(Konrad giggles.)

(The five finally pull up to school one and drop off Karl, then school two to drop off Maedy and finally school three to drop off Konrad.)

Konrad: I forgot my hat. I need my hat for kinder. Can we go back?

(Lise and Bobbi look at one another.)

Lise: Konrad, it’s time to go in to kinder.

-End Scene-