First Steps

The key turns in the ignition. Fzzt.  Cough.  Splutter.  “Oh, God” comes Mum’s comment from the passenger seat.

“Bloody hell” murmurs Dad under his breath in a suitably contrasting spiritual response.

Try again.  Fzzt.  Cough.  Splutter.

“Why aren’t we going?” I pipe up helpfully from the backseat, having looked up from my crayons and colouring in book to see what the fuss is.

“Yeah, why aren’t we going?” adds my sister, ensuring the tension ratchets up another level.

The fuss, it turns out is that we are stuck.  Stuck on a ferry right at the moment that you really don’t want to be stuck, namely when a whole line of cars packed bumper to bumper are trying to drive off the ferry.

We’ve travelled overnight from Zeebrugge to Hull having spent the previous two weeks having a whale of a time touring the campsites and youth hostels of Germany, Holland and Belgium, our small car struggling around the continent like an overburdened mule wheezing its way along the road. 

 

Up until now Mum’s insistence that something always goes wrong whenever she travels hasn’t come to pass, but sadly the expected mere formality of a ferry ride and drive home gives her reason to believe again.

“Why can’t we just go to Tenerife like everyone else?” comes my next valuable contribution.

A tow truck is hastily summoned to get us off the ferry, ending the worries of those stuck behind but our troubles don’t end there.  The customs officer clearly thinks this is all an elaborate ruse to import contraband and avoid suspicion by having to be towed.

Our car is given a fine tooth comb going over before we manage to complete our journey home.  Even my younger sister’s doll is taken from her for some prodding inspection, which I could have coped with had my own toy not been taken next by the nasty official, much to my dismay.  I make sure both customs officer and parents are well aware of my dismay at this turn of events.

My memories of these events are hazy at best, but it gets mentioned sufficiently often for me to feel as though I remember it well.

I’m reminded again of it years later as a backpacker in Australia.  Not that something always goes wrong, but that when it does it leads to a memory and a story as much as something going right can do.

It was at some point shortly before I sliced my foot open on a rock pouring blood everywhere next to the “Danger Crocodiles” sign.

And it was at some point shortly before our bus driver got sick and drove off the road repeatedly and had to spend the next day in bed in nowheresville Northern Territory.  

It was at some point shortly before all of that that I told my fellow backpackers that “It’s much more interesting when things go wrong”.

Naturally, I felt slightly responsible for the ensuing incidents.