slippery when wet

Annie and I were on our way back from the Airport on Wednesday night when we slipped off the road. Just this side of Koppio I went through a slushy patch so I was slowing down to stop to put the Ute into 4WD, I had the clutch in to move back to second gear and we hit the next slushy patch. We went straight across the other side of the road with no traction at all. We ended up on a precarious angle off the road on the other side.

We weren't hurt at all, not even a bruise, but by cripes it gave us a jolly good fright. Bear in mind this was 6.30p at night, dark as pitch and it was raining. I was really really worried that being on such an angle it would tip over. I put it into 4WD, put it into gear, pulled on the park brake and turned off the engine.

Annie piped up "I'm OK Mum", and then burst into tears. My heart just broke. I couldn't get back to her to give her a big hug in case we rolled over. I fumbled around in the dark until I found her hand and just squeezed it with all my heart. I need a distraction for her and I thought of her DS which was somewhere in the back seat. I turned on the interior light and she found it by her feet. She started playing with that, but I could still hear a little sob now and then. Then I turned off the light to save the battery, not being sure of how long we may be there for with the hazard lights blinking away.

Now what....no mobile phone signal in that area, so I started going through 1 to 40 on the UHF channels. "Hello, hello. Can anyone hear me? I need help!" I tried it twice on each channel, so that's 80 times I repeated myself to no avail.

By this time Annie's DS battery failed and she was getting scared again. We didn't have much choice but to rug up, carefully get out, lock it and walk on the muddy road for help. I had to use the light from my phone to shine our way.

 Fortunately we were only just a few hundred metres outside Koppio so we didn't get too wet. We knocked on a door and we were very lucky enough to have caught the fella at home as he just about to leave to go out. I rang Kym at home and he bundled up Sean, who had been asleep, to come and pick us up.

Upon looking at the Ute, we decided to leave it till morning. It was cold, wet, dark and we had both the kids to think of as well. And what's more we both thought that if we tried to shift it, it would roll.

Kym went down there next morning to have a good look at it in daylight. (that's when he took the photo via his phone). We had made the right decision to leave it there. It was just too chancy to shift it without a tow truck. He also discovered some Police tape tied onto it. Someone had reported it during the night and the Port Lincoln police had travelled out to inspect it.

Our local Tow Truck driver retrieved the Hilux around lunch time and he thought it didn't look any worse for wear. I'm really surprised I didn't rip off the exhaust or something else from under the vehicle. He took it round to our local mechanics who found time in their busy day to give it an inspection and even gave it a quick wash. (There was plenty of mud underneath as you can imagine) It was then taken to our local Tyre Business and had the two rear tyres replaced. It just so happened that I was going to book in next week to get them done anyway. By 5 O'clock today, I had my vehicle back none the worse for wear.

We were so lucky. Lucky that we didn't hit any trees. So very very lucky we didn't roll over. Lucky that I was slowing down to second before we started to slide. Lucky that the fella was home when we knocked on his door. Lucky to be living in such an amazing town to have all the help we needed to get the Hilux back on the road so quickly. But most of all lucky to have and so appreciative of Kym, who didn't get cross, didn't blame or accuse. He was just glad that we were OK and still in one piece. And that the Ute was in one piece too.

If nothing else it has really enforced to Annie why we wear seat belts in a car.

No doubt all this will come up as the butt of jokes later on....but I can wear that.