Out On The Highway

A few weeks ago, I was driving out on the highway for the first time driving the family into Mt Isa. Everything was going great and I was feeling very confident. I had the van up to 80kmh, which is the speed limit for a learner driver. I’d avoided a dead kangaroo in the middle of my lane, given plenty of space to the road trains, and was enjoying myself very much. There was a ute that had been behind me for a while, and I figured he’d pass me the moment he got a chance. Nobody likes going 80 if they don’t have to. The solid white line in the middle of the road turned to a broken one. A road train came around the corner ahead and I prepared to move over. The last trailer on them sometimes fishtailed and I always was careful to stay out of the way. I glanced in the mirror. The ute was indicating and pulling out into the other lane to pass me. Dude, you’re not gonna pass me, I thought, because that’d be just crazy. I could tell there wasn’t enough room. But he didn’t care, or didn’t realize, or something, and moved fully into the other lane. In our five years on the road, I’ve seen plenty of similar situations, but never before this had I been behind the wheel when it happened. I knew what I was supposed to do though. I braked the moment the ute was out from behind me, giving him all the room he needed. The road train slowed down, pulled off as much as he could – when you’re 50 metres long there’s only so much you can do to avoid a crazy driver. I slowed right down and pulled over slightly as the ute dodged back into his lane and sped off. The last trailer on the road train swung over the centre line a bit as the driver pulled his heavy vehicle back into the middle of his lane, and it wasn’t until a few minutes later when I was doing 80 again that I realized my heart was racing and my mouth was dry. “Crazy driver!” Daddy said from beside me, sounding nearly as spooked as I felt. And then we crested another rise and there was the crazy ute, parked on the very edge of the road with their dog wandering free in the middle of my lane, while the driver appeared to be texting on her phone. Yep, her phone. The crazy ute driver was a woman!

 

Our current tent is about to become part of the “broken tent saga” – the zips on the main door have nearly had it. We’re on our third toilet tent too. Zips just aren’t reliable for this sort of thing!

 

On a more positive note, the family who brought one of Lassie’s puppies came to visit us this week. Junior, the last of the litter, is now 14 months old and called “Cadbury.” He’s beautiful and behaved himself very well camping next to us for several days. He knew most of his basic obedience commands, never ran off Big thanks to his owners for training him so well!

We did a performance at a fundraiser in Mt Isa on the 27th, which was great fun. Photos are on the Superdogs Facebook page.

 

I haven’t been very good at keeping this blog updated this year, it’s been so busy and with our trip to the QLD outback we didn’t often have internet reception! Our next show is down in SA in three weeks so hopefully I’ll have more time to blog. The lack of photos on this post is due to the battery on our camera refusing to charge! So another thing to add to our increasing list of broken gear.