Driving in Aussie Country

Oh what a joy to drive in Aussie country. My first driving experience happened to be in the dark on a long and curvy road. Of course they drive on the other side of the road, and the steering wheel is on the other side of the car, and everything else in the car is opposite from us. Including the turn signals. If I turned on my windshield ( or windscreen as they call it here) wipers then I turned them on a million times trying to turn left or right. Luckily the drive from Cairns to Port Douglas was a straight shot….minus the round-a-bouts. They like to use round-a-bouts instead of stop lights, which I have to say is pretty nice and keeps the traffic flowing pretty well. Luckily I did not get stuck in any like Clark Griswald. Oh and I should also mention that there are a million round-a-bouts.

On our journey to Port Douglas we got stopped by the 5-0!  (No ladies it was not Steve McGarrett...one could only hope!) Well, not stopped in the since of they were behind me and pulled me over, but they had a roadblock set up. So we slowly inch up and I roll down the window to see what is up. So the cop asks me if I want to blow in the breathalyzer.  Apparently I was a little too eager and was like “yeah sure”….knowing that I had not been drinking! The cop then looked at me, laughed and told me to just go on!! He’s probably like….”crazy American!!”

Our rental car was a cute little red Hyundai Getz. Although our bags were about as big as the car!! It got us around though.

The feeling is so strange driving on the opposite side of the road. I did catch myself every once in a while wanting to go to the right. Heidi and I had to constantly chant…left, left, left…to make sure we were always going left! I think the passenger side was scarier than driving though! I know I found myself hugging the far left line and not the center line because well, it was a little unnerving when cars were coming at you on the opposite side than you are used to. Heidi and I talked about it and apparently we both did the same thing because at times we’d have to close our eyes in the passenger seat because it looked like the one driving was going to drive right off the road. The road from Cairns to Port
Douglas is an ocean road and therefore very curvy and at times nothing but cliff right beside you.

All in all though it wasn’t so bad and we both think we have finally gotten use to it. We are renting (hiring) a car in Melbourne for the day so hopefully we’ll be okay.