It was a simple task; leave at 8.20 am so I had plenty of time to find a park at my Ear, Nose and Throat specialist; on my last two appointments I had to park a few blocks away and walk due to ongoing building blocking the entire street parking. The appointment was at 9.30 and a good run to the city is twenty minutes. Thirty to forty minutes on a bad day, as I was just missing out on peak hour traffic. Or so I thought.
It is interesting to see how many tempers fray when the traffic is crawling and the only side streets that can be escaped down are eventually dead end streets. I saw a few drivers scoot off down the side street just to end up trying to join the long queue at the next side street. I was stuck in the middle lane with no one willing to let me into either outer lanes; I had no chance of trying to effect a detour.
Fifty minutes later I caught up with the source of the traffic congestion. A large gaping maw encompassing almost a entire traffic lane and part way into the side street. Adelaide does not have the most modern water pipe system, the evidence of which lay before me. Even the trailing fire engine had to drive along a few kilometres along the opposite side of the road into oncoming traffic. Fortunately traffic on the outgoing lanes were not full of frustrated commuters late for work, so were happily moving out of the way (as they should).
Eventually I made it to my appointment and was preparing for the long search for an on street car park. Today just had to improve.. and it did! I drove straight into a park in front of the building.