Taking the scenic route
Yesterday sure was full of drama. I finished my morning surgery early and had a couple of hours to spare so decided to take a drive up through the hills and have lunch in a nice peaceful spot and maybe do some reading. Unfortunately my plans did not work out quite that way.
When I was deep in the bush, about 18 km from the nearest town, the road changed from bitumen to gravel (for a stretch of about 5km it turned out). As I was driving I hit a loose patch of gravel and the car began to fish tail out of control. I tried to correct it by steering back in the other direction but this made the problem worse and the back end of my car swing around 180 degress and I careened off the side of the road towards a pretty steep drop. Luckily for me my car didn’t make it onto this slope as a large tree arrested my progress. The front end of my car was compeletly smashed in by the tree. It all happened so fast I didn’t have time to panic or fear for my life and within a second of impact I knew I was okay. If that tree hadn’t have been there and I had rolled down the hill I might not have been so lucky.
Anyway I quickly jumped out of the car, took note of my minor aches and scratches, and then grabbed my mobile to call for help. It was at that point I realised that I was far from the reach of my mobile service and so was stranded 18km from town on a remote track. At this stage I was doubly grateful that I was relatively unscathed. I went back to the car and retrieved my briefcase, a couple of CDs and the case containing work’s laptop computer and some blood samples I was carrying back to the surgery. Left behind in the car were another case containing some medical forms and things and my old beat up acoustic guitar which I always keep in there.
Yet another stroke of providence - a car came past within 10 minutes of the crash. Their phone didn’t work either, and their car was packed to the brim, and they were travelling in the wrong direction, but they agreed to squeeze me in and take me as far as the next sign of civilization. Luckily 5 minutes down the road we came across another car coming in the opposite direction heading towards town, so I swapped into that car and joined 4 elderly folk on their drive. When we eventually made it into the little town, the old guy said “don’t I know you from somewhere?” and then worked out that him and his wife had seen me at the surgery a couple of weeks previously. Ironically I had done a drivers license medical check-up on the old lady I’d been sitting next to in the car.
Still no mobile service in the little town so I went to the Police station to get some help. I filled in a report form while the officer called the local tow truck guy to come and take me back out there. Why is it that police always seem to make me feel guilty even when I’ve done nothing wrong? Anyway the tow truck took me back out the long drive to the car to pull it out of the bush. 
When we got there I looked in the back to see that my old guitar had gone, and it was less than an hour since I’d left the car. The tow truck driver was not surprised - he’d seen crashed cars been pilfered many times. We got the car out in a very sorry state and towed it back into town.
On the road into town we were waved over by a couple of the girls from my surgery, who had kindly driven all the way out there (about 30km) to pick me up, when they heard what was wrong. Not only that, but they’d arranged to borrow a spare car from one of the other doctors for me to use over the next few days. They really took good care of me. As we drove off they told me the next surprise - a patient had phoned up the surgery to say they’d found the doctor’s car and saved his guitar and some things out of it and will drop it down to the surgery. How they knew it was my car I’m not sure but I appreciate them saving my stuff (not that the guitar was worth much anyway - sure glad it wasn’t my new guitar or my good acoustic)
Finally I got home a couple of hours later in the borrowed car (which is very nice, only I can’t get the stereo to work) and told an aghast Jenni the tale of my adventures. Checked the mail and what did I find? The registration renewal for my car. I don’t think I’ll be paying that one - the car is a wreck and even if they could fix it it wouldn’t be worth it. I was always planning on getting a new car next year - this just means I’ll have to get one sooner. So tomorrow’s job is to start shopping for a new car. Hopefully the insurance will pay out on my old car but even if they don’t it’s not the end of the world. At least I’m okay (though very stiff and achy in my neck today) - everything (aside from the crash itself) went as good as it possibly could yesterday - someone was really looking after me.
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