IT should have been a straightforward trip from Sydney to home; about 90 kilometres all up, leaving the city event about 1.30pm on a Friday.
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But it wasn't. I'm a bit vague about when it dawned on me that it was one of those days, when the sun was shining, the birds were twittering, things seemed to be as they should have been, but I was standing on the precipice of a trip where the more I tried to reach home the more the fates appeared to be lined up against me, and the more my decision-making went belly-up.
Think I’m being overly dramatic? Consider the following.
I left the harbourside Sydney venue shortly after 1.30pm on foot. Nice.
Sydney Harbour sparkled and the warm breeze carried the scent of spring blossoms eerily bursting into life in mid-July. Thousands of people wandered around on the last official day of the school holidays – parents showing the resigned but strangely peaceful faces of survivors who know salvation is only a couple of sleeps away, while children skipped along as they chirped their requests/demands.
“Can we go to the Maritime Museum?” “Can I have an ice cream? Why can’t I have an ice cream? You let Tiffany/Josiah/Sebastian have an ice cream. You are so mean.” “Are we there yet?” “I’m staaaaarving. Can we go to McDonald’s?” The usual stuff.
Even Darling Harbour looked passably attractive, in the way that great big shopping centres can look passably attractive if you’re not actually in them, and you’re squinting, and the sun’s behind them, and you’re legging it in the opposite direction.
Anyway, I made my way across Pyrmont Bridge onto the pedestrian ramp that led to Wynyard Station, walked to the right platform and waited for the train that was due to arrive in a couple of minutes to take me north to where my car waited for the final leg home. I was tired after the event but picturing my loungeroom, the hot pot of tea and the toast that awaited an hour and a half away.
Just before the train pulled in there was the first note of doom.
“Customers, something something something, delay, something something, tree on line, something something, buses, Chatswood, something something, Hornsby. We apologise, something something something, inconvenience.”
What?
But the train had pulled in by that stage. Like everyone else I didn’t have a clue what was going on, pulled a face, checked that people around me were pulling faces, and then stepped on board. We took comfort from the fact we’d all decided boarding a moving train was better than standing on a stationary platform, even if we weren’t exactly sure where the moving train was going to or what to make of a message that seemed to have reduced our “all stops” service to just Chatswood and Hornsby, with a tree and some buses along the way.
For the next few minutes things became clearer, then less clear, then really not clear, then clearer again, based on which announcement we wanted to accept. The train was being diverted to another line from Chatswood, and “customers” could choose between getting off there for buses or heading to Hornsby. There was a tree across the line somewhere in-between.
I’m lazy. The thought of leaving the relative comfort of the train for buses wasn’t appealing, even though somewhere in the back of my brain a little alarm was ringing, warning that heading for Hornsby meant having to catch a train back up the line for my stop, with no confirmation at all that the downed tree hadn’t knocked out trains in that direction as well. But as I said, I’m lazy. I stayed on the train.
And of course that was the wrong decision. To cut a long train story short, by the time we reached Hornsby the service I needed was up in the air, there were no buses waiting and every taxi was taken, with a line of people already queueing.
No worries, I thought. I’ll start walking up the highway. My car’s not that far away. Surely a taxi will come by?
And yes, you know where that ended. I can confirm that a stretch of the highway south of Hornsby is very boring as you walk away from the railway station, and even more boring as you trudge back towards it.
The train service I needed still didn’t appear on the board. The line of people at the taxi had shortened, by a little, so I took up a spot.
By this stage I knew it was one of those trips. So when the taxi driver took a wrong turn and we both realised we were on the end of a very long line of cars trying to negotiate one of Wahroonga’s busiest T-intersections, I felt validated rather than exasperated. Yes, it is one of those trips. The taxi could have turned left earlier to avoid this, but the fates have decreed that on this day he would stuff up and I would be sitting here, contributing to his early retirement as the meter ticks over while we don’t move.
I finally reached my car. I don’t need to detail how long it took to negotiate Friday evening traffic heading for the motorway, other than to say that every intersection was clogged, every turn produced another obstacle, and every obstacle came with a choice about how I should respond, and I took the wrong choice every time. Nailed it.
By the time I reached the motorway and a big sign warned “Hazard ahead, pedestrian on road”, I could only think, of course. It’s a motorway with a speed limit of 110kph surrounded by bush, but of course there’s a pedestrian on the road. The only question is why. The traffic slowed down for awhile, then slowed down some more, but I didn’t see anyone. The pedestrian got off the road, apparently.
Things were looking good for awhile. I started picturing the loungeroom, the pot of tea and the toast again. Then the motorway turned into a large carpark for no apparent reason and we crept forward for a kilometre or so until an exit appeared and I pulled off. Sometimes moving, even if it’s in the opposite direction to where you want to go, is the right decision.
In this case the deviation wasn’t even that bad. I followed the old highway we used to travel on when I was a kid. I even felt a sense of nostalgia driving over the old bridge at the bottom of a winding gully, where Dad always pulled over because by that stage one or all of his children were throwing up.
Aaaahhhh, memories.
I eventually sat in my loungeroom with my feet up, and my pot of tea and my toast, about four hours after I thought I would. It’s not the destination, it’s the journey, we’re told.
No. Sorry. It’s the tea and toast at the end that keeps us sane.