Concerning hire cars

 Our first stop out of Sydney was the Blue Mountains about an hour or so to the west of Sydney. Our first job was to pick up our hire car and here I have to say we hit the jackpot. We had reserved a car nine months ago to get the best prices, so we had our car ( a three door nasty Hyundai) at $26 a day. We got to the office and it was pretty chaotic with people filling out their forms, queueing, asking when their car would be ready. There was obviously a backlog in the garage and people were getting snappy having to wait while their car was readied. It came to our turn and sure enough our car wasn't ready. The guy phoned the garage a few times to no avail, there were no nasty X-class vehicles available. Then another employee, overhearing our guys pleas for an X-class for Melbourne drop off, said that there was a K-class that had to go to Melbourne. I grabbed the leaflet that described their classes of cars and started to grin when I saw that K-class was full size SUV. The Leader of the Opposition showed signs of reluctance to take this car, these I ignored and said, Yes, you bet we're happy to take your K-class. It turned out to be a fab Nissan X Trail, with heaps of room, air con, great sound system that goes good and loud (which is, as you know, the only way to feel the noise) and as a bonus, is long enough to sleep in. As we were driving along we said that it was useful as if ever we were caught out with nowhere to camp we could sleep in the car. Prophetic words as an hour later we found that there were no campsites available and we would sleep in the car. We found a quiet car park and went to put the seats flat to get in. It was here that we found that the back seats didn't go flat but stuck up at quite an angle. If we had thought for a few seconds, or even tried that last resort of the truly lost and got the instruction book out we would have saved an uncomfy night. As it was we just cursed Nissan's design department and argued over who got to curl up and not sleep on the back seat and who got to curl in a ball to doss in the boot. I started on the back seat with Helene in the boot. It became apparent in about two minutes that it would be a long night. At about 1am we swapped places, self to see if I would be less crippled in the boot and Helene to try out the horrors of the back seat. At about 3am we went back to our original roosts, as I found that the back seat was a bit less like being on the rack. The dawn light started at about 5am and with a glad cry I got out and started taking pictures. I had slept about two hours and thought the kinks in my spine were permanent. Somewhere in the long watches of the night I thought that it was impossible that the seats didn't go flat and in the morning we dug out the instruction book. Imagine then our dismay when we found that the seats go perfectly flat if you follow the book and we had suffered a night in agony for nothing. The moral of this story; RTFM (read the *!-ing manual).
The hire car saga has a sequel. We were staying for a couple of nights at a place with the slightly improbable name of Mollymook. One of the attractions of the area is a walk up a peak called Pigeon House Mountain. We decided to have a look and off we went, myself, Helene and Margaret our hostess. We were about a third of the way there when a dog, hot on the scent of something, ran out in front of us. It was about 25 feet in front and I barely had time to get to the brakes before there was a nasty thud and Fido was no longer with us. We continued on into the woods, but after about 15 km I noticed that the air conditioning wasn't working and the engine temperature was high. I stopped the car and we borrowed a mobile phone from a car that we flagged down. The guy at the rental company took our details and said the tow truck would be there in an hour. After about 45 mins Margaret got a lift back down to the village, leaving us two on this very quiet gravel road in the woods. After two hours we concluded that something was awry and decided we had to borrow another mobile. I flagged down the next car which was a 20 minute waits. At the same time Margaret re-appeared with her son in his car so between what she had found out from phoning the hire company from home and my call on the mobile we came to the agreement that I would go and collect a replacement car, drive back to the broken one and collect our stuff, leaving the broken down car for the tow truck when he arrived. I left Helene with the broken car in case the tow truck appeared. It was 43 centigrade but, as I said to Helene as I hopped into the welcome cool of Margaret's air conditioned car, don't worry at least it's a dry heat. We got to the hire car place to pick up the replacement, which is a lurid orange sports car with a eco-friendly 3500cc V6 engine. Not my first choice of car but I have to admit that we are getting good value for our $25 a day. In fact the orange car is a bit longer than the Nissan so its a bit more comfy when it comes to dossing in it.
The sequel to the hire car saga has a sequel. I have had many hire cars and have never even scratched one. Not so on this trip. The V6 sports machine was great fun, quite zippy when you stomped on the gas, as evidenced by the occasional cries of 'tabarnac' from the Leader of the Opposition as we shot through 140km/h still accelerating when overtaking. After we had had it three days a truck drove past us and a stone flew from it and hit the windscreen. A star shaped crack appeared which soon elongated over the following days until it was a split about three foot long. 'Surely nothing else can happen' we said. Wrong. A day or so later we noticed that someone had put a dent about a foot long in the passenger door, probably while reversing. Great. At least from now we have no hire cars and in Europe our own car is so beaten up that another dent or so just adds character.