The Bush Mechanic

This story is not about my car but about my cousin’s car, although I was lucky enough to be there for it and survive it. Our Grandparents own a hobby farm in the Adelaide Hills about thirty minutes from the city. They did live there for a long time after they retired, they even ran a bee honey business out of it, but soon they grew tired of that life style a moved back to the city. The farm became our family’s holiday home and when the grandchildren became teenagers it became our party house whenever we could get up there.

One weekend in spring I headed up the farm with my younger cousin Bret a hand full of his friends. We arrived on Friday night cooked a barbeque and got absolutely blind drunk, as you do. It was a long night that involved drinking everything we had bought for weekend. In morning I awoke to discover that not only had all the alcohol been drunk, but the all the stuff for breakfast had been eaten too. Which I later discovered was my idea. So off to the shop it was for us. Most of the lads did not want to believe that it was in fact almost mid day, and that dealing with sun light and social activity was just around the corner. It was at least another hour before we got organised, piled into my cousin’s car and headed to the nearest town. We got loaded up with all the food we could afford and some more beers for the evening.

The road that leads to the farm is your typical windy country side road. Lots of sharp turns, drop offs, steep hills and ridiculously fast speed limits. There is also the occasional dirt road; the farm is actually on a very steep declining dirt road as well. Most of my family learnt the basics of driving on this road, doing shuttle runs up and down it and Bret was no exception. He was regaling his friends with stories of driving around the hills and learning to drive on the cruddy dirt road that the farm was on. Eventually one of his friends asked him “Have you ever timed how fast you can go down it?” Brett took the bait wonderfully “Nah, but we’ll give it ago now.”

Obviously not liking where this was going another friend asked “Are you sure man? Its looks pretty steep hey...”

“Don’t worry I know this road like the back of my hand”, Bret replied holding his hand up in front of his friend.

And there it was, boys and their cars. Bret stopped the car at the top of the road and asked someone start their stop watch. “GO!” yelled Byron, who was sitting in the passenger seat. Bret floored it, the wheels slightly spinning on the dirt as we took off. The first hundred metres we cruised along nicely. We approached first bend and I felt the car start to slide out along the dirt. “AH FU...” That’s all I heard. I had knocked my head on the roof of the car and had been knocked out. When I opened my eyes I was being shaken around by Bret, who was freaked out thinking he had killed me. My head ached and I was dazed, but I was ok. I got out of the car and laid on the ground for a while listening to the others argue about whose fault it was and what the hell they were going to do. I got up and looked at the car. It didn’t look the best. It was leaking coolant and the front wheel was on a very odd angle, and its tyre was blown. Bret was starting to lose it, and started hysterically yelping about what his parents were going to do to him.

There was a small mechanics garage about two kilometres back the way we had came, so after pooling all our funds Bret, Byron and myself started walking back to see what we could get done. So there we were. Three hung over dirty look teenagers trying to get our smashed car fixed so we didn’t have to face parents. The mechanic was there luckily and after explaining the situation he said he could help us, but it will probably cost a bit. I pulled our funds from my pocket and placed them on the counter; sixteen dollars, nine cigarettes and about fifteen dollars worth of weed. The mechanic looked at the pile I had placed in front of him, then looked at us, then burst out laughing. He actually laughed for quite awhile, I was beginning to feel awkward when he stood up and said “Alright fellas, I’ll do it, can’t knock such a tempting offer back! Ha ha!” That was it, he chucked us in the back of his ute/car tower mobile, picked the car up and fixed. The car was basically a write off, but he got working and told us we only had about two hours worth of driving left in the car. Probably the best mechanic I have ever met and I know that I will never get anything done to any car that cheap again. And for the record we got back to the farm ate food, got drunk, fell asleep and drove all the way back home again.