By arosema93
They say that you learn something new every day and this week it was something I never expected to learn before coming to America. I learned to drive a manual car! Apparently, something that I never realized is that most of the rest of the world still largely drives manual cars, partially due to their fuel efficiency. So, when I came to Australia, I was hit by the realization that I would only be capable of driving about 10% of the cars in the country. In Australia, some states require a separate license/test in order to drive a manual vehicle. However, an American license is 100% valid in Australia and also still qualifies me to drive a manual; despite the fact that I would have no idea what I was doing.
So finally, this weekend, I took the opportunity to have two friends teach me how to use a stick shift properly. One of the problems with learning to drive a manual in Australia is that it is something most Aussies don’t even know how to do. Being used to nearly everyone obtaining their license at age 16 or 17, I find it weird that the average person here does not take a driving test until 21 or so, and many young people do not own cars. Fortunately, two of my friends do and were willing to help me out. Surprisingly, it wasn’t too hard to pick up, and I was successfully driving, slowly, but driving, after only stalling it about three times. Quite a useful new skill to pick up.
Part of the time I learned was while out on a trip with several friends to explore some caves in a nearby area. It should have been about an hour and a half drive away, had the driver followed the directions properly. Instead we ended up driving around in the middle of nowhere for just over three hours on what turned out to be one of the most scenic drives of my life. The New South Wales countryside can be gorgeous at times. Upon actually finding the cave, we headed in and only made it about 10 meters in before stopping in a cavern…that led nowhere. Extremely disappointing. There was a stream in the bottom of the cavern and we checked out both where it entered the cave and where it exited, but it appeared to be impassable. That is, until I decided to duck into the stream and crawl through the tiny entranceway which ended up leading to a cave that we were able to explore for another two hours! At the end of it there was a gate restricting further access to the cave, but we were still quite satisfied with what we saw.
On the drive to and from the cave, we saw numerous wombats dead on the side of the road (which btw, because of their short stubby legs, basically looks like a giant teddy bear on the side of the road) and they all had big X’s spray-painted on them. Eventually I asked what they were for. Apparently all Australian’s are supposed to carry spray paint in their car and upon finding a dead animal on the side of the road, stop and check if it is a female and has a baby still in its pouch. After checking, you spray paint it with an X so that all the other drivers don’t stop as well. My friend once found a baby kangaroo in a pouch and they kept it to raise it!! Although it died after several days without its mother, that story has reinstated my hopes of one day having a pet kangaroo, which I will also train to be a professional boxer. Unlikely to happen, but I won't give up. I'm just amazed that if you were to find a baby kangaroo, you would actually be legally allowed to raise it yourself. But I suppose that makes sense considering that at times they are also farmed here, hence kangaroo burgers and kangaroo steaks. Although, I believe kangaroos are quite amazing animals, I won't deny that they are also one of the most delicious.