Cars

Mrs. Troopie has a problem. She runs great, but her body is too rusty and will likely prevent her getting a road worthy certificate. Poor old girl, I know how she feels. See, they’re really picky here about public liability. I guess it has something to do with the fact that the government picks up the tab if you should happen to be driving down the road and a large chunk of rusted metal happen to fly off the decrepit but mechanically sound vehicle in front of you, causing a chain reaction which lands you in the hospital. Theoretically, of course. Plus the fact that the seller, Beck’s de facto husband who lives farther back in the bush than even she does, hasn’t signed some critical form and doesn’t have a fax machine within 100 kilometers. Also Mrs. Troopie was only registered as a three seater, so if we were to add seats we’d have to start from scratch. We call it a “Learning Experience” (make sure you do the finger quote marks when you say it for the full effect.) Fortunately, not a very expensive one. She will make a terrific farm vehicle. Supposing we ever get a farm. In the meantime we have purchased another truck, an older, as yet unnamed diesel Toyota 4 Runner (4WD); a friend for Mrs. Troopie.

We bought that after spotting it on the side of the road on our way into Cairns to look at yet another truck. The owner, B, works at a local crocodile farm, so the day we picked it up we met him halfway at his job. He was busy getting ready to do the feeding show when we arrived, so we decided to go in and have a look. (I’ll let you in on a little secret: There are deeply discounted unpublished prices for locals. You have to know the password though, and I’m not telling. So we got in for about 50% of what all you regular tourists would have to pay, unless you were with me, because, I have a Queensland drivers license now, which might just be enough of a reason to come visit, eh?) Anyway, the place was nothing like Palmdale’s horrifying Gatorama attraction; this was top notch all the way. B told us to make sure we got there early to get good seats, which we did, but he failed to mention that while we were stuck in our good seats listening to his partner do his spiel from the safety of a special enclosure, B would actually be in the pit feeding the biggest monsters keeping them from causing trouble during the show. He was just out of my camera range. Below are pictures of B guiding our boat tour, one of the many crocs he encouraged to leap right in front of my camera, and a few koalas from the zoo exhibit that were so close we could’ve poked them with a stick. Like the snake.

Then, because we had a theme going, picking up the new truck and dropping off the rental, we took the kids to see Cars while we were in the city. My impression? Great animation, good story, and Americans sure love their cars. It made me just a little homesick.


I think that cars today are almost the exact equivalent of the great Gothic cathedrals: I mean the supreme creation of an era, conceived with passion by unknown artists, and consumed in image if not in usage by a whole population which appropriates them as a purely magical object.

-- Roland Barthes