The phrase ‘travel tales’ conjures up images of exotic locations accessed by plane, train or sea.  It implies a long journey rewarded with long dreamed of experiences quite foreign to your everyday life back home.  Travel tales are the memories you hold on to you as you return home with cases to unpack, the same old same old to resume and possibly a few credit card statements to give you that final jolt into reality.  All of this is true but the tale I have for you today relate to a place closer to home via a motorway I will probably always consider my arch nemesis no matter how long I live here in Sydney.

It might only have been a 9.4 km drive but my preparation to get to Alexandria via the Eastern Distributor was as intense as if I had been planning a month-long backpacking and cycling tour of Vietnam (something that’s on my bucket list only I’m not sure when I’ll ever find the time to make it happen, I suspect I shall have to just make the time…).

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Insert dream sequence here.  Images of myself cycling casually yet earnestly as I take in the beauty around me.  Evenings spent recording the day’s events by hand in a battered Moleskine.  Old and new favourite Vietnamese dishes being savoured in between, their recipes coming home with me and being lovingly recreated in the kitchen of SSG Manor 2.0.  Me then deciding to use my long service leave to cycling more of the world’s most beautiful cities.  Except for London and New York.  I’m not that misty eyed and romantic….

The times I have to drive the Eastern Distributor are few and far between but absence definitely does not make the heart grow fonder.  The merge points are so short, the exit points always come at me at such short notice (despite the voice over lady’s authoritative instructions on my car’s GPS) and it’s so confusing have something called a distributor buried in the middle of another street.

Luck was on my side this time, though.  With a print out of my route next to me to consult as I drove and clear skies under which to read the street signs, I got to my destination with plenty of time to spare.

I was in Alexandria to get my car serviced and with all the effort (and nerves) that it took to get there, I decided to stay and wait for my car.  With wifi, snacks and power points aplenty, I sat myself down to get all things done.  And to regroup for the drive home.

Is there a stretch of road where you live that you absolutely loathe driving?

Do you make a mountain out of a molehill every time you need to do so?

Have you been on a cycling tour of Vietnam?