Every Downside Has An Upside

Being stuck without a car is a total pain in the you know what, and it happened to me recently. Even worse, it was far from home.

On a recent gymnastics trip to Townsville, my car conked out in a bad way going from the hotel to the competition. After waiting for RACQ for an hour for a repairman, and then another 3 hours for a tow, I missed my daughter’s whole competition. Such was my timing that I arrived in an Uber as they were walking out the front door.

Lesson learnt here, have your car breakdown at an intersection, because if you’re safely parked up, you’ll get bumped down the list.

The next few days were just tricky to negotiate, stuck in Townsville while the family got a lift home, and nothing was particularly close by in walking distance. Plus, I didn’t want to walk far because after only planning a two day trip, I had limited clothes to sweat in anyway.

Inconvenience is far underrated. When you’re not exposed to it you don’t think about it, it never bothers you. But when inconvenience is with you all day, and you know it will be there the next day, and the one after that, it starts to get really annoying.

Being stuck without a car and a few days away from the family was the definite downside. The only upside about this whole episode was the Sunday afternoon in Townsville the Cowboys played the Storm, so I went to that game to kill a few hours, and the Cowboys smashed them. The other more surprising upside of the trip was how good the train is from Townsville to Mackay. Much cheaper than a plane, a little longer than a car ride, but far more comfortable with giant seats and heaps of leg room, even in economy, and access to the bar and café. I give the train trip from Townsville to Mackay a big tick.  

Scotty

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