Long Days Journey Into Night

Last Saturday, we drove up to Newcastle, approximately two and a half hours north of Sydney, where John's mother, sister and family resides. It has been a couple of months since John had last seen Pat, and has missed her. Since Saturday was his niece, Chelsea's 15th birthday, we thought it would be a good idea to "kill two birds with one stone".

We had an absolutely glorious day and the weather agreed with us, delivering us a warm lovely Spring day. We usually stay over the weekend because five hours of driving is sometimes too much to handle for one day. I'm not particularly keen on driving but will do so if pressed. On this occasion, I was happy I wasn't. We left Newcastle at around 6.45 pm, and as we were about an hour and a half on the F3 highway, and about one exit before the one that we were meant to get off, John asked if I heard this strange noise emitting from the car.

I stopped my iPod which was transmitting on the car stereo and listened hard. There was indeed something flapping but we could pinpoint where exactly it was coming from. We started descending and the noise stopped, so we dismissed it. As the road flattened again, it came back and just when I was about to make a wild guess and suggest that we stop, John yelled "The car is flat. It's not going anywhere." Puzzled because we were still moving, I realised that the dashboard was no longer lit. The car was still moving probably because we have not slowed to a stop.

I quickly suggested that we steer the car to the left shoulder, which John quickly agreed it was a good idea. We sat in the car for a muted five to ten seconds, and John said that it was probably safer that we stayed outside the car. "Good idea", I thought because you never know what could hit the car when everyone is zooming past at speeds past 110 km/h. It was slightly scary, not only because we were partly stranded on the shoulder of the highway, but more so because everyone was moving so fast. The cold winds did not help as well, and as John tried to make out our exact location to tell the NRMA (car repairmen), I clutched my jacket closer to myself as I helplessly watched the lonely headlights of the cars in solitude.

John soon came back that they were prioritizing our case (good idea) because it's not like we could go back into someone's house or reside on a cafe waiting for them to arrive. The estimate was set at around an hour for them to arrive. What are we going to do to kill time? John started looking a little stressed because he was tired and we really didn't need this extra drama. Figuring out that there was no way I could find out the problem, I tried to cheer him up a little by suggesting that this was our "Long Days Journey Into Night" because I have the tendency to try to look on the bright side of everything.

We tried to think of how things could have gone wrong, and John tried to restart the car again a few times, braving the traffic, that looked at times ready to swallow anyone who took a wrong step. Then, in the dark, a four wheel drive stopped, and out stepped someone with a baseball cap on. Cautious, I clutched on my bag and moved it out of sight. One can never be too careful and this is too dark. He started asking us if we needed help. He sounded nice and helpful but I didn't trust him because I couldn't see his face or his eyes, which is such an important feature, I believe.

He turned out to be a car electrician and knew a little about cars. He opened the bonnet, sniffed and sensed that something smelled "cooked". We nodded in unison, waiting for a miracle. He made a few kind suggestions and we tried them all, but to no avail. He eventually said that since we had a repairman coming, he would not touch the car any further. We thanked him for his help and he revealed that he stopped also because he was racing someone, and thought he should stop too. Helping someone was his excuse to himself to stop participating in that dangerous behaviour.

Fair enough. He was still kind enough to stop and help, and we were really grateful. It wasn't until he left that John and I heaved a sigh of relief. Embarrassed, I confessed to John that the first thing that came to mind when he stepped out of the car was "Wolf Creek". I have not even seen the movie, but one does not have to watch it to know the theme - serial killer picks up backpackers hitching a ride and slaughters them. Okay, it was a little too melodramatic, but I couldn't be sure. There was no guarantee that he wasn't going to pull out a knife, and ask us to part with our belongings. Who's going to hear us then? What is really sad is that we have become so cynical and cautious in this world that we anticipate fear first rather than kindness, and we are more shocked when we are encountered by a good deed doer. It was rather similar that the incident that I was so angry about a couple of months back, but I guess that this situation is a lot more different.

The repairman finally arrived about 15 minutes after that. We were bored by then and tried thinking of the worst. What if he leaves us here and we have to wait for a tow truck? Which of our friends would we trouble to come pick us up if this was what it came down to? Thankfully, we had friends who were happy to save two damsels in distress if we needed, and fortunately, we didn't need it. The battery had died but after the repairman jump started the car, we were able to follow him into the nearest gas station, and wait for the replacement battery to arrive.

It was much nicer to be safe, away from the bustle of the zooming cars, and come to think of it, we were very lucky that we were near an exit and the highway was brightly lit. I would shiver to think if we were stranded on the darker stretches. I don't think we would have survived as well. The battery finally arrived about 45 minutes to an hour later and in the midst of waiting for it, we realised that the radiator had been drained as well. We topped it up and came to the conclusion that it was what ultimately caused the battery to fail.

Thankfully, the drive home was smooth but after we stepped out of the car, we noticed fuming from the front, and it was not a good sign. The radiator was leaking and that posed another potential problem to be fixed. The car is now fixed but what a night this has turned out to be.