Sydney driving...
Jan. 16th, 2006 08:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
khiemtranWell, that was embarassing. I drove up to North Sydney on Sunday to visit some friends, and I managed to miss the harbour tunnel.
It's a trip I've done many times before, but this time there was one vital difference - I had a new E-tag. (Okay, I've actually done the trip one other time since I got my E-tag, but I was paying more attention that time.) The E-tag meant I was driving in the E-tag only lane in the Eastern Distributor, and thus broke the second rule of driving in Sydney ("Always keep to the lanes you know").
The catch was, the special E-tag lane didn't led to my normal exit, but to the larger exit bound for the CBD. Once through there, I still had a chance to get back into the correct lane, but only if I could decipher a pair of signs before a large barrier split the lanes in two. The two signs read "City North" and "Manly" (I think - there was another set of confusing signs when the tunnel first opened reading "City North" and "North Coast"). I spent my second or two of thinking time in a blur of panic, aided by my navigator ("left, no right!"), then chose "City North", realising almost instantly that it was the wrong one. I had that special kind of sinking feeling you get when you know you've chosen the wrong lane and you can see the opportunity to change back slipping away. A second later, the barrier appeared, and I was off on a magical mystery tour of central Sydney. Two full circuits later, thanks to Sydney's tortuous streets and some road closures, I gave up trying to find the tunnel and headed for the harbour bridge instead.
To make things worse, I managed to miss the tunnel again on the way back.
Moral of story: always remember Rule 2.
It's a trip I've done many times before, but this time there was one vital difference - I had a new E-tag. (Okay, I've actually done the trip one other time since I got my E-tag, but I was paying more attention that time.) The E-tag meant I was driving in the E-tag only lane in the Eastern Distributor, and thus broke the second rule of driving in Sydney ("Always keep to the lanes you know").
The catch was, the special E-tag lane didn't led to my normal exit, but to the larger exit bound for the CBD. Once through there, I still had a chance to get back into the correct lane, but only if I could decipher a pair of signs before a large barrier split the lanes in two. The two signs read "City North" and "Manly" (I think - there was another set of confusing signs when the tunnel first opened reading "City North" and "North Coast"). I spent my second or two of thinking time in a blur of panic, aided by my navigator ("left, no right!"), then chose "City North", realising almost instantly that it was the wrong one. I had that special kind of sinking feeling you get when you know you've chosen the wrong lane and you can see the opportunity to change back slipping away. A second later, the barrier appeared, and I was off on a magical mystery tour of central Sydney. Two full circuits later, thanks to Sydney's tortuous streets and some road closures, I gave up trying to find the tunnel and headed for the harbour bridge instead.
To make things worse, I managed to miss the tunnel again on the way back.
Moral of story: always remember Rule 2.
