Quote:
Originally Posted by iceman
I'll be staying at Waymouth St in the city, and won't have a car  |
Hi Mike,
By not having a car, you potentially miss out on one novel attraction of the Adelaide
road system.
Here is an anecdote of my experience I hope you find amusing.
A couple of years ago, I needed to fly down from Sydney and have a meeting down toward the
southern Adelaide beaches.
Fly in, pick up the rental car at the airport, key in the address in the SatNav and
off we go.
OK says the SatNav, get onto the M2 Southern Expressway. Get to the intersection
of where the entry to the M2 should be, see cars coming off it but can't spot the
entry road to get on. Must have missed it. So I drive around the block and get
back to the same intersection. Damn, for the life of me I still can't spot it.
So I drive around the block again, pull over and study the map of the SatNav.
As an aside I have stopped beside some Adelaide park and there is a sign warning
you that there are snakes in the park. Snakes in a city park!? "Toto, we aren't in Kansas anymore".
Anyway, I re-program the SatNav and effectively ask it "take me by some
alternative route that isn't on the M2 because it is blocked".
OK. It takes me on a parallel road and I get to my destination and meet with the
people who are hosting my visit.
I tell them my story about not being able to find the entry to the motorway.
"Oh", they tell me, "It is one way between such and such a time and such and such
a time and then reverses to being one way the other way between such and such
a time and such and such a time except on weekends when the times are
different again".
I looked at their faces to see if they were pulling my leg. "You're not joking are you?",
I ask. "No, we are telling the truth" they respond.
Then the obvious question pops in my head about what happens if you happen to
just get on when it is about to reverse. "Oh, there is some dead-time to allow the
last cars to get off before cars can go in the other direction".
This leaves me doubling-up in laughter.
Being so familiar with the impossible
road congestion in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane and in dozens of other cities
around the world, the notion of a reversible motorway was not part of my driving vocabulary.
At the end of the day Dorothy, Adelaide really is just a big country town.
http://www.ozroads.com.au/SA/New/2/m2.htm