Oct. 6th
We woke up at a reasonable hour and decided to spend our morning exploring the National Museum of Australia, only a short walk from our hotel. We really didn’t know what to expect here, but were pleasantly surprised, and I honestly think I could have spent several more hours exploring. There were exhibits of all sorts, ranging from history to wildlife to movies to culture to you name it. If it had anything at all to do with Australia, you would find it discussed here. Some of my favorite exhibits included a reconstructed skeleton of a Diprotodon, the largest known marsupial to have existed in Australia. Resembling a giant wombat, this creature stood about 6.6 feet high and was about 10 feet long. They also had a skin from a Thylacine, which was of interest to me after having possibly seen one on the road a few days prior. Since the last known one died in 1936, it was about as close to seeing a real one as I could hope for. They also had exhibits discussing the problems associated with invasive species, with which Australia has had many a battle. One of the neatest exhibits was an insect collection collected by Charles Darwin himself, complete with labels he wrote! That about made my day.
After having spent at least four hours at this fascinating museum, we knew we had a long way to drive this day, so we hit the road by early afternoon. Once we got out of the confines of Canberra proper, we started noticing signs for wineries, and we decided to try to find one that was open after our lack of luck the day before. We decided to skip the first, and the second was closed. We came upon the third, and were in the right turn lane (equivalent to a left turn lane in the States) to access its road when we heard horrible squealing tires…I turned, horrified, to look at Nate, and an instant later we were hit at high speed from behind, whirling into oncoming traffic. As I watched this play out in slow motion, I calmly and somewhat fearlessly wondered what was going to happen…would we be hit? Would we be injured? I didn’t let myself get any further than that thought when we were hit again by an oncoming pickup truck. All the cars came to a stop as quickly as they could, and I remember stating the obvious to Nate, that we had to get out of the car, fast, not knowing if the thing would catch fire or who knows what. Our car had been accordioned, so much that we couldn’t open the doors. Nate had to kick out his door, and I exited on his side. Nate’s glasses had flown off, and our trunk was smashed in, leaving stuff all over the street and a trunk in our backseat. Holy crap, anyone back there would have died. We’re lucky we didn’t.
Once out of the car, we were both in a rather stunned state. We made our way to the side of the road as other cars just stopped, unsure of what to do. I luckily noticed my computer case had landed in the middle of the road, and cars were gingerly driving around it. I ran to grab it, and by some miracle the computer was unscathed. Some drivers asked if they could do anything, and I just asked them to call for help, which it turns out many had already done. Then Nate and I stood, dazed, at the side of the road and waited for help to arrive. We had some witnesses offer to let us sit in their car, out of the drizzly rain. In talking to them, we were able to find out a bit more about what happened at the scene. From their account, we had been sitting in the right turn lane on a straight stretch of road with no obstacles to block the view of people coming up from behind. I guess the car behind us (quite a ways back, considering we were stopped for over a half minute before impact) wasn’t paying attention and was speeding, and the people behind him were riding his tail closely. The squealing we heard was him swerving around us at the last second, and the guy behind him didn’t have time to react and smashed into us at, by estimation, about 55 mph. From what we understand, the swerver was the son of the guy who impacted us. Neither of them spoke much English, so we couldn’t get any information from them at the scene. The guy who hit us was injured along with his wife and possibly a grandchild, and while their car was likely totaled, it was nowhere near as bad as ours.
An ambulance eventually arrived, and I let them look me over, but declined a trip to the hospital, as did Nate. Of course the people that hit us were all about hospitals and injuries. Well, if you’d drive safely, maybe you wouldn’t be in this predicament, hmmm? After we were checked out, Nate went off to give the police his statement, while I just stood out in the rain, still stunned. I was given a blanket and just watched as the cars went by, not quite letting the gravity of what just happened sink in. Eventually, our tow truck driver showed up and got the car hooked up to the truck. We had a few last words with the police who gave us their contact info, and climbed into the truck.
Sandwiched between Nate and a jovial but foul-mouthed, rather racist Aussie, we had an awkward drive back to his scrap yard, listening to his rants about Julia Gillard (the current prime minister) and various other things I’d rather not get into here, as we laughed nervously and hoped his reckless driving wouldn’t result in the second accident of the day. Once at the yard, we got our bearings and bade farewell to our loyal and now unrecognizable Tiida. Our driver drove us back to the central business district of Canberra where he dropped us off at the bus depot. There, we were assured that all buses were gone for the day, and that the station would be closing, so we’d have to make arrangements for accommodations. I sat in the station with the luggage while Nate ventured out, desperate to find us a place. He wound up settling for a rather pricy establishment next door, but it afforded us comfort and internet service, so it was likely worth it. That left us with the problem of how to get back to Melbourne in time for our flight in two days. I was lucky to get that night’s original hotel reservation cancelled, and Nate took on the task of finding us transportation. We were fortunate to find two seats on a flight down the next morning, so thank goodness! The last thing we wanted to do at this point was drive anymore, and it wasn’t like our rental company was around to help us much anyway.
I ultimately wound up with left-sided whiplash, and my pain increased as the day went on, being downright awful this evening. Beyond this, I really wasn’t phased about the whole thing until I started thinking about that backseat. What if someone had been there? I can’t think about what ifs, but still. It ate at me all night long. Our Tiida served us well, though. Oh, Nate lost his shoes, and we lost an Aussie Smurf Happy Meal toy, but I think that’s really it. At least no one lost their lives. Still, we were dazed, angry, and in shock…and did I say angry? I had some serious anger issues once I really thought about what their carelessness could have resulted in. I still do at times.
Anyway, we hadn’t eaten at all that day, so we decided to venture out, aches and pains and all, to find some sort of food. We limped down to the nearby McDonalds, and while they managed to screw up my order consistently, it really did hit the spot. Then we came back and got some drinks at the hotel bar before retiring to our room for a rather fitful night.
