mayoraasei (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mayoraasei) wrote2009-01-05 06:18 pm
mayoraasei) wrote2009-01-05 06:18 pm
le hume
So we rented a car and drove down and back from Melbourne, the "city" that thinks it's as cool as Sydney when really, it is so not =P It feels like a toned down Washington DC mashed with a severely deprived Flushing - in that it's really artsy in the city centre, and other inner city areas just seem really old and dusty and tram lines running low overhead. We stayed in a crowded hostel in Prahran, which reminded in many ways of Newtown, including its many rather quirky antique-looking shops.
As you might expect, since the trip lasted a total of about two days with about 11 hours of driving each side, we didn't actually spend much time doing anything in Melbourne except what was on our tight schedule,
Didn't sleep until about nearly 6am this morning, becuase I didn't dare go to sleep in the car in case my dad (driving) went to sleep as well. They're expanding or whatever-ing the Hume Highway, so the stretch from Albury to Yass is filled with road work zones, where there's just two narrow lanes for two way traffic with a speed limit of 100, which is surely asking for accidents to happen. The road has no lighting (as per most parts of the highway), the reflective bits on the dividing lines are very far apart, the road work areas include lots of sharp curves AND INCONSIDERATE DRIVERS DON'T TURN OFF THEIR HIGH BEAM LIGHTS WHEN THEY APPROACH. Because you're driving so close to the opposite lane (there's no dividing strip like in most of the normal part of the Hume), oncoming cars with their high beam on basically turns the already dark road completely black because your own normal lamp is overwhelmed. Going at 100 km/h on sharp bends where the dividing lines are barely visible ALREADY..is just......UGH. And stupid drivers who keep their high beam on when they SEE you've turned off yours. Far out.
I mean, I want to vent about trucks and buses too, but I know it's not their fault that their lights are at exactly the eye level of a small car and is about 10 times the intensity of normal car lamps. But cars can at least control their lamps, bloody hell.
Really recommend against driving at night on the Hume down to Melbourne unless A) You drive a bus and tower over the stupid cars or B) you do so after the road works conclude.
Also just for the record, the high beam lights on a Toyota Corolla is extremely bright (or maybe it's just the one that our family friend rented - we drove together). The glare feels overly bright even when they're about 500m behind.
Night-driving truckies are scary. To look in the rearview mirror and see five towering trucks bearing down at you at speeds of about 130km/h (well over speed limit =P) is like being a rabbit while elephants are on a stampede. 5 minutes later they are gone, their tail lights shrinking dots in the distance, weaving in and out as they overtake each other. I guess it's pretty boring on the road, so they probably race each other =_=;;;;;
The night sky is so beautiful outside the city. I think on the day we drove down we saw a planet near the moon. It was the brightest spark...big enough to look like an airplane (but it was up there for hours, so it was obviously not =P). But the stars are so much brighter and there are so many more of them. The sky is actually pitch black, and the stars look suspended in them, and you can even see clouds of very distant stars, like glittering rivers.
You can't look at the sky while at a petrol station either. You really have to pull over on an empty highway so that there's no light but your car and the moon and the stars overhead. Makes me want to go drive out and just sit there and watch the stars some time.
Apparently I was talking clearly in my sleep in our one night in Melbourne. My mum claims I uttered "Made many reports to the police" in a voice so clear and unconfused that she thought I was awake. LOL What? I don't remember having a dream like that XDD
Edit: After consulting the star charts I realise I did indeed see "The Saucepan" =D And also Orion and the whatever constellationy things muahahaha~~ It must have been Venus I saw too ♥
As you might expect, since the trip lasted a total of about two days with about 11 hours of driving each side, we didn't actually spend much time doing anything in Melbourne except what was on our tight schedule,
Didn't sleep until about nearly 6am this morning, becuase I didn't dare go to sleep in the car in case my dad (driving) went to sleep as well. They're expanding or whatever-ing the Hume Highway, so the stretch from Albury to Yass is filled with road work zones, where there's just two narrow lanes for two way traffic with a speed limit of 100, which is surely asking for accidents to happen. The road has no lighting (as per most parts of the highway), the reflective bits on the dividing lines are very far apart, the road work areas include lots of sharp curves AND INCONSIDERATE DRIVERS DON'T TURN OFF THEIR HIGH BEAM LIGHTS WHEN THEY APPROACH. Because you're driving so close to the opposite lane (there's no dividing strip like in most of the normal part of the Hume), oncoming cars with their high beam on basically turns the already dark road completely black because your own normal lamp is overwhelmed. Going at 100 km/h on sharp bends where the dividing lines are barely visible ALREADY..is just......UGH. And stupid drivers who keep their high beam on when they SEE you've turned off yours. Far out.
I mean, I want to vent about trucks and buses too, but I know it's not their fault that their lights are at exactly the eye level of a small car and is about 10 times the intensity of normal car lamps. But cars can at least control their lamps, bloody hell.
Really recommend against driving at night on the Hume down to Melbourne unless A) You drive a bus and tower over the stupid cars or B) you do so after the road works conclude.
Also just for the record, the high beam lights on a Toyota Corolla is extremely bright (or maybe it's just the one that our family friend rented - we drove together). The glare feels overly bright even when they're about 500m behind.
Night-driving truckies are scary. To look in the rearview mirror and see five towering trucks bearing down at you at speeds of about 130km/h (well over speed limit =P) is like being a rabbit while elephants are on a stampede. 5 minutes later they are gone, their tail lights shrinking dots in the distance, weaving in and out as they overtake each other. I guess it's pretty boring on the road, so they probably race each other =_=;;;;;
The night sky is so beautiful outside the city. I think on the day we drove down we saw a planet near the moon. It was the brightest spark...big enough to look like an airplane (but it was up there for hours, so it was obviously not =P). But the stars are so much brighter and there are so many more of them. The sky is actually pitch black, and the stars look suspended in them, and you can even see clouds of very distant stars, like glittering rivers.
You can't look at the sky while at a petrol station either. You really have to pull over on an empty highway so that there's no light but your car and the moon and the stars overhead. Makes me want to go drive out and just sit there and watch the stars some time.
Apparently I was talking clearly in my sleep in our one night in Melbourne. My mum claims I uttered "Made many reports to the police" in a voice so clear and unconfused that she thought I was awake. LOL What? I don't remember having a dream like that XDD
Edit: After consulting the star charts I realise I did indeed see "The Saucepan" =D And also Orion and the whatever constellationy things muahahaha~~ It must have been Venus I saw too ♥