No worries

We had meandered our way through yet more breathtaking passes and valleys all morning and had taken in a wonderful lunch (for wonderful, read: not drowned in chillies).

I took the cab passenger seat and had a bird's eye view all afternoon. I couldn't get over the lack of traffic - we had this paradise all to ourselves. As we turned a sweeping corner, the reason became apparent - roadworks repairing yet another landslide. Traffic backed up on both sides of Caterpillar diggers. As luck would have it, our side got the nod to proceed just as we joined the queue.

By now, I knew Ben was probably the most experienced driver I would ever meet. Even so, manoeuvring an 11 ton truck through such narrow passages, with such suspect surfaces was, to put it mildly, a non-trivial task.

"No worries!" muttered Ben, with that unsettling Australian upward inflection at the end that turns every statement into a question. (Pity the poor bride who hears her beloved answer "I do" and wonders if he has gotten cold feet. I digress.)

Did I mention that we were in the steep cliff on the left, sharp drop to the right, road barely one vehicle wide scenario?

Funnily, this was the easy part. Easy because I could not see how close we were to toppling off the right hand side of the dirt track some idiot branded a road. No, there was much moe 'fun' to come.

As the road widened a little, we found ourselves in a different predicament: although the road was wider, we now faced a line of parked oncoming traffic with even less room to manoeuvre. And, a nasty, deep gulley on the left; if the left hand wheels slipped into it, we'd need a crane to get us out.

"How are we doing Bob?" Ben enquired as he inched the truck forward with annoying accuracy, a master class in spatial manipulation. A glance down out my window. "About two inches" I replied with ice in my blood. "The edge of the road is beginning to crumble under the weight of the truck" I added, as casually as I could.

"No worries" (inflection still rising). A minute adjustment. Another few feet forward.

And so it continued for another 10 minutes until we were on open road, traffic jam, landslide and gulley all behind us.

"No worries", Ben flashed a broad smile.

Quite.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad