Bastiaan en Lily's blog

Damn, it has been so long since I wrote anything here. Live has just been to busy and I hardly find the spare time to write anything. I am attempting to find the time to learn Ruby so who knows, that might be a reason to revamp this site.

Today was an adventure though, the Dutch festival was on, a yearly get together for Dutch migrants here in Sydney with traditional Dutch food and Dutch entertainment. The festival itself is a 3 day event and today was the last day. The festival was a lot of fun, getting to the festival proved an adventure...

About 20 minutes away from the festival we were doing a nice 100kph down the M7 when the car suddenly felt weird, started making noice and after a bit of a scream from one of my passengers and seeing ample amounts of smoke in my rear view mirror, I quickly realized we had a serious problem. I had lost a tire.

I've never had a puncture going that fast and was actually amazed at how stable the Tarago remained and I had no problems getting her to the shoulder.

The left rear tire had gone out, not just puntured, there was little left of the damn thing! I'm glad it wasn't one of the front tires, that would have been interesting to say the least. Now normally this is no fuss, but after looking around the car I had one spare, the wrenches to undo the bolts, the handle of the jack, but no jack... Luckely we are NRMA members so no fuss....

Mind you, this was solution #1 to solve todays issues, include a jack with the car, I have no idea where the standard Toyota one went to..

So here was problem number 2. The NRMA waiting jingle came round clear as could be so I know nothing is wrong with my phone but once I got through to an operator the volume dropped. I explained we were on the hard shoulder and weren't formiliar with the area so I had no idea how close we were to a break down bay. The operator explained to me that they aren't allowed to fix tires at the side of the freeway and they would need to call out a tow truck. That lead to problem number 3 the towtruck can carry two adults, we were 4 adults and 3 children and we were advised to organise alternative transport.

In come solution #2 and #3, drive slowly on the hard shoulder until you find an emergency bay, in hind sight it was only a couple of hundred meters from where we broke down, and always have numbers handy for calling out a taxi...

Less then 30 mins later the tow truck arrived, numbers were exchanged, taxis finally organised but the tow truck driver wanted to move on so our party was split into two as the taxis should arrive in a few minutes (the cab operator was even harder to understand, Apple, put better voiume controle on your phones!, Telstra/Optus, get your act together!).

Well those few minutes weren't as few as we had hoped and before they arrived, a nice patrol man on a motorbike saw our merry band waiting at the side of the freeway and came and have a chat. Luckely he was very understanding of the situation but also very shocked and amazed at how our merry band was left fending for ourselves at the side of the freeway especially seeing we had young children in our midst (Mind you, this is 3rd hand accounting, I had to go along with the towtruck...). Here came problem number 4, the taxis arrived but with 3 children requiring child restraints...

Here actually having a patrol man at the scene was a blessing as he volunteered to give the cabs a little police escort, as we only had a small way to go and it was the better option as the alternative was leaving everyone at the side of the road waiting for a fixed Tarago...

Before our group was reunited the Tarago was unloaded and the NRMA arrived at the scene to replace our poor tire. It wasn't long until two taxis and our patrol man arrived as well. The patrol man was under the impression the NRMA guy had left us standing at the side of the road and wasn't to pleased, the poor guy from the NRMA didn't know what came over him. Luckely we got that sorted quickly and explained away after which the patrol man had a good talk to me as he rightfully wasn't to happy with me either for allowing the situation to unfold as it did.

In comes solution #4, make sure passengers are off the road first period even if that means having the tow truck wait or leave.

All's well that end's well though, nobody got hurt and the kids got to enjoy a ride in a cab with a police escort which is a story that will stick for a long time.