There's no such thing as idiot-proof

I woke up at around 6.30am on the morning of Tueday 4th July with the sole intention of making it to the sunrise viewing area at Uluru in time for the sunrise which I had been informed would be at about 7.30am. Breakfast was half a rockmelon (I love that stuff) before I headed out into the darkness to get acquainted with Chops2, my ride for the next two days.

Chops2 is my cousin's Ford Explorer which takes its name from his nickname, Chops. The previous evening Alan had said something to the effect of, "It's automatic. Have you driven an automatic before?" I answered that I had once moved my Grandma's automatic from the back of my house to the front so I knew what I was doing. In the back of my mind I was also thinking, "How hard can it be? It's got no clutch and can't stall. It's idiot-proof. Hell, if Americans drive them all the time they can't be that complicated."

So in the cold darkness of the morning I jumped into the drivers seat of Chops2, started the engine and went to reverse out of the parking spot...except I couldn't get the damn thing out of park so went nowhere.

Now, I'm not an idiot. I knew that I had to press the button on the side of the gearstick to move it but for all I pushed that button and pulled the gearstick the damn thing would not move. By this time it was closing in on 7am and I knew I still had to buy petrol and drive for around 15 minutes before I made it to the viewing area so this was a hassle I could've done without. So I did the sensible thing and pulled the driver's manual from the glove compartment and started reading.

How was I supposed to know the stick wouldn't come out of park if I didn't have my foot on the brake? Makes sense now that I think about it but I never had to do that on my Grandma's car.

With that problem solved I reversed onto the road and headed for the petrol station, only briefly getting lost on my way.

Okay so I'd made it to the petrol station. Putting petrol in the car wasn't something I could get wrong, surely.

You'd be surprised.

Pulling up with the wrong side of the car to the pump was easily fixed. That wasn't a big deal. I'd found a pump that dispensed the right fuel, Opal. Opal is a kind of replacement unleaded petrol sold in the Northern Territories in Australia because it only has something like 5% of the fumes of normal unleaded petrol. It was introduced to try and cut down on petrol sniffing in the territory, a problem that is rife, especially in Aboriginal communities.

So all I had to do now was take the off the fuel cap and fill the tank. Except for some reason I couldn't get the fuel cap off. I turned the key, expecting the cap to come away in my hand, but it didn't. I tried twisting it off but it didn't seem to be loosening whichever way I turned it and I certainly didn't want to break the thing. Still wasn't a big deal though, I figured I could just check the manual.

How to get the fuel cap off wasn't in the manual.

By this point it was after 7.10am and I'd been standing by my car in the petrol station without pumping any petrol for more than five minutes clearly looking a bit 'special.'

I double checked the manual, triple checked it and then quadruple checked it just in case I'd missed the information the other three times. It was when I looked that final time that I noticed there was a sort of quick start guide leaflet in the plastic cover the manual was in. Thankfully this leaflet held the information I required so I got the cap off, stuck $40 of petrol in the tank, paid up and started tanking it along the road toward Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park...well within the speed limit of course.

I could've done without having to stop at the park entrance to buy a three day pass for $25 but I don't think it would've made much difference. By the time I made it to the sunrise viewing area it was about 7.35am and the sun had risen high enough that I missed all the colour changes on the rock and by now the rock was fully illuminated. I still took a couple of photos as the rock seemed to get more and more impressive the closer you got.