Dave Edgren drives from Melbourne to Noosa and hits a black sand stretch that causes hydroplaning, breaks his coffee mug and maple syrup, and packs sand into his tire treads. He frames the mishaps as a lesson in staying steady through unexpected challenges.
Chapters
tell you a little story from my trip. I just got back from a holiday and I did a driving trip from here in Melbourne all the way up to Noosa and then back. And I went up the coast and came down through the middle. And on the way back, I wanted to go out and see this Outback pub in Rowena. And so I just let the GPS plan the trip, and it was, uh, an interesting way that it planned. I had all these dirt roads that I had to go wiggle back and forth. And, uh, about I was about 45 K's of dirt roads, and about halfway into it, I come up to this sign, and I'm barreling along, you know, in this really good gravelly road, and then there's a sign that says, uh, black dirt or black sand section of the road coming up. Do not attempt to cross if wet. You will sink. And it's like a proper road sign, and it has that written on it, and it wasn't wet. It was very dry, and so I thought, this would be interesting. I wonder what black sand is like. And so as I hit that section of the road, the sand— the road was so smooth, the sand was so smooth, it was like there was no road noise. Like, it was, it was like driving on a cloud. And as I was planing along on this, I noticed that if I turned the wheel a little, you know how especially on dirt road, you're kind of turning back and forth a bit, it wasn't seeming to do anything to the vehicle. It was like it was just going straight no matter what I did. And I realized it was kind of hydroplaning, was just sliding across. And so I slowed down to 60-70 kilometers an hour. It was a straight road, so I was just maintaining speed. And, and then I noticed a black patch on the road coming towards me. And it was only when I got right up to it that I realized the reason why it was blacker than the rest is because it was actually a shadow of the bulge in the road that was coming at me. And so I dropped down into this bulge and then went up the other side. And by the time I was going towards the up part, I realized this is like a whoop-de-doo in the road and it's gonna throw me. So I put both hands on the steering wheel and I held tight, and then I lifted my foot up off the brake, hovered above the brake, and just let it decelerate and just held on and thought, if I just keep the wheels steady, it hopefully— if I brake, it could start skidding, and who knows what could happen when I land. And so if I just let the momentum go forward and just hold on, hold steady. And it went up, and then as I landed on it, it went up in the air. I thought I had nothing breakable in the back of my Rexton, in my four-wheel drive, but I heard two things shatter. And later I found out that it was my coffee mug combined with maple syrup. Canadian maple syrup is made in good glass, and kshh, it filled one of my tins that I have in the back. I have rubber tins with my stuff in them, tubs. And so I have one now with a layer of syrup in the bottom. And, but I came down and pshh, that broke. And then I realized there was another whooptie-doo in front of me. And so again, I just, I was slowing down and going straight. And I went up that one and didn't get the air that time, but went over that one and then slowly let it kind of, ah, roll to a stop. And I didn't stop, I mean rolled down to a slow speed. And then I looked to the road really carefully from then on out. And it was interesting, after I came off of the black sand, it still felt strange. The steering still felt wobbly and felt unsure. So I pulled off to the side after a while, I thought I must have a flat tire or something, and I went and I looked, all the tires were fine, but in the— I have all-terrain tires on there, and in the groove between the, you know, the tread, it was full of this black sand. And so it had made my grip kind of slippery like I was driving on slicks. And so I just drove and stayed on the dirt and, well, the gravel, and it slowly broke all that loose. But yeah, I was just thinking about, you know, when we're on the path of life, sometimes you suddenly see something coming and you've been maintaining speed, you've been, you know, doing everything right, but suddenly there's just this black spot in front of you. And the idea of just holding steady and taking a loose stance where you just let loose and just hold, and what you've been doing will get you through. And then hopefully on the other end, you're able to go back up to speed. So anyway, that's a little story from my trip. Tell me some of your driving stories. So yeah.
