So, the day started well with alarms ringing at 5.30. We managed breakfast and packing, and left camp bang on 6.30, along with several other travellers also heading for the ferry. Apparently we weren’t the only ones not taking any chances. With very clear directions kindly supplied by the camp owners, we headed off through the Suburbs of Melbourne and were soon on the Western Freeway heading into the City Centre. Our instructions were to get off the freeway onto Cook St, signposted Todd Street Service Centre. No Problems right? Wrong.
We won’t say who was driving and who was navigating, but we are still married. The navigator, who just happens to be about 19 years older than the driver, and therefore more experienced, somehow had it in his mind to look for a sign saying Cook St Exit. The driver was far too busy coping with 4 lanes of traffic rushing to work to look for street signs. Well, that’s her defence anyhow. Personally, I think she had the easy job. The navigator realised his mistake as he saw the Todd Street exit zoom past his window.
There is a rather coarse word that represents the act of human reproduction, which very loudly escaped his lips at this point. Unfortunately this drew Cameron’s attention to our predicament, and the ensuing 45 minutes did nothing to enhance his opinion of his father’s otherwise faultless language, navigation and leadership abilities. Have you ever been totally and absolutely lost in Melbourne’s inner city streets at 7.00 am on a Friday morning with an out of date map, very few street names, rain falling, and a Ferry to catch? And the clock is ticking? No sweat mate.
Words can’t describe the next 45 terrifying minutes. My maps were large scale, which meant a new page after about every 5th intersection. Sometimes the streets flowed from page to page; sometimes they jumped forward several pages, sometimes back. Of course there was nowhere to stop to get our bearings, and by the time we had found a street name, looked it up in the index, found the appropriate page, then the appropriate street, we had travelled on to the next map. And all the time the clock is ticking. Getting stressed? Who me? You ain’t seen nothing mate.
We finally ended up in a dead end street, somewhere down in the Melbourne Dockyards, I think, and were able to pull over. At last a chance to fix our position, plot a course to the ferry, and Bob’s your uncle. No sweat. Right, we are on Collins St close to the intersection with Dockland Road, facing south according to the onboard compass. So all we have to do is look in the index, find the streets, find where they intersect, and we’re off. Easy. Do you know how many Collins Streets there are in Melbourne? Do you know how many Dockland Roads there are in Melbourne. Two thousand seven hundred and eleventy seven. That’s how many. And still the clock is ticking.
Time to do the unthinkable. Ask a passerby. But will they stop and talk to a stranger in the rain while they rush to work. One did. Just our luck. He had only lived in Melbourne for 6 months, and didn’t really know his way around. But he did know that the trams ran along the second street up, and he thought they sometimes went to the Ferry terminal. They say a drowning man will grasp at a straw. I never believed it before.
Second street right was Flinders Street, and there ahead was the Flinders Street Railway Station. Thank god. At last we knew where we are, but how to get to the ferry. There was nowhere to pull over and park and work it out, so it was back to the bloody index, map, street, ah here it is, too late, next street, shit, what’s this street, don’t know there’s no name, etc. We knew we had to get back across the river so I was frantically looking for a street that looked like it went over the river. Finally I found one that must be just ahead. Turn right at the next intersection. “I can’t, it’s no right turn.” Shit. Carry on. Try this one. “Can’t, it’s one way”. Shit. Shit. Shit. And still the clock is ticking. By this time we were on the approaches to the MCG and getting further and further away from the ferry.
Throughout all this Christel was negotiating rush hour traffic, trying to read street names, telling an increasingly concerned Cameron that despite his father’s rather strange behaviour, we would make the ferry ok, and doing her best to calm an increasingly blabbering idiot of a navigator. How she did it I don’t know.
Finally, and there is a god up there, we were able to cross the river and there was a road name. For once the maps followed in natural order and I could plot a course to the bloody ferry. We made it by ten to 8. We had been lost for a good 45 minutes. As a consequence I am now 85 years older, no longer have a son who thinks his father is bullet proof, and have even more admiration and affection for my wife. What a woman.
I think that’s enough for today.
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