Nothing puts an instant stop to your day like a flat battery in the car first thing in the morning - in fact, any time. After a quick call to make sure my regular passenger had a lift, I rang the local 'stranded drivers organisation' of which I am fortuantely a member - well, reciprocal member since I am interstate (should that be 'inter-territory'?).
I was parked in an access road behind my house, which I thought would pose no problen for a maintenance vehicle to pop along with the customary jumper leads to kick start the car. After doing a few odd jobs sweeping the path etc, I decided I would make a cup of tea, because in my experience, that is guaranteed to speed things up, or at the very least, make the wait more pleasant. Three sips into the tea, I heard what sounded like a semi trailer drive up the street beside the house. I wasn't far wrong! No snappy little wagon built for jam-packed city streets - I'm in Alice Springs, and driving up the street was a rather large Outback Recovery truck of the sort need to return damaged or otherwise troubled vehicles of varying sizes from far afield places. It seemd slight overkill for a flat battery, and it crossed my mind that access would be somewhat difficult. Undaunted, the driver carried the necessary equipment up to my car - rather like a doctor with his bag. He jump started the car and told me where I could buy a replacement battery.
Forty minutes later, with a brand new battery fitted at two-thirds the price of the last one I got in Sydney, I was waiting to turn at a set of lights, and there was my knight in shining recovery truck with a 4WD firmly in place on the back of the truck. We both waved and continued on to face the rest of the day.
I will get some jumper leads, but I'm almost glad I didn't have any today. It was another classic moment in Alice. May there be many more :)
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