We are just back from a weekend away - accompanied by a new travel companion. He promised the world: the shortest; the quickest; the most direct. The timbre of his voice was so reassuring.
So when he spoke, we listened up.
Take us to Port Fairy Folk Festival we said. He obliged. Go this this-away and that, said his steady, authorative voice. We followed. Our trust implicit.
But soon the roads became a little narrower. Started to weave and wend. Cris-crossed the countryside. Hmmm .... this trip was taking ages.
Then the road surface developed bumps .... or should I say moguls? Gosh, I didn't know this car could become airborne. Then without warning we were bumping down an unsealed road. Rumble, rumble, bump. Tummies lurching.
What was he playing at? Did he think we hadn't wised-up to the fact that we were travelling parallel to our destination?
Finally he commanded Turn Left. What? Were we really being asked to turn into somewhere called ... Toolong Road?
A gadget's prank? Or could it be that some ignoramus had mucked about with the GPS settings not 24 hours prior. (I hope my other travelling companions aren't reading this ... it was so much easier to blame the gadget.)
I've been dreaming of getting a GPS for some time. I even suggested it as a possible gift for my 30th. I know, I know, what was I thinking?! I am super bad at map reading, but reading this makes me think so is the GPS. Maybe I'll just continue old school.
ReplyDeleteOur travelling companion is know as "The Lady" and she was quite the character on our US trip. Had I not been from California and had basic navigation skills, she would have sent us in circles around the US.
ReplyDeleteI hope you and your new friend reach a better understand than "The Lady" and I have.
The car that got wrecked last month had sat nav, but the problem happened when it said turn left but the road wasn't there anymore. the disc was a few years old so with all the road works that went on in some places it was pointless to have as it wanted you to drive right through a building that popped up
ReplyDeleteI always get lost with sat nav or a GPS, can't seem to read them right. Give me a normal map any day over those 2 :p
i think you turn your brain off with sat nav, and then somewhere along the way you realise the man doesn't have a brain!
ReplyDeleteOver here they have a posh english womans voice!
I love GPS trips now. I have one in built in my phone (best thing ever) but I love playing with the settings: shortest trip, fastest time, tolls, no tolls... it makes old trips new and "exciting".
ReplyDeleteIt took me some time to just roll with what the man said (I love it when he says "Now bear *slightly* right"), and I have gotten myself into trouble before by thinking I know better than Him. But there have been other times, like driving through Tasmania, ("Some of these regions are yet to be mapped") and we end up north instead of south. I have a friend who now refuses to travel with me if I use the GPS, and has a deep mistrust of it after it's taken us on some crazy adventures (although I personally thought they were "fun" ;-D)
We discovered you can use the GPS on our phone in offline mode, so thought it'd be great to compare the GPS with the in-flight map. Except the GPS started beeping at us incessantly, warning us that we were traveling at speeds >200km!
My father has a GPS lady to argue with, so he doesn't miss arguing with my mother about directions! Perhaps GPS's save some marriages and destroy others! :)
ReplyDeletelol, I hope you made it there safely! I feel like I grew-up at the PtFFF, the first was when I was 2 1/2 in 1982!! It was a formulative weekend in my life for years after that!
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