I had my final disagreement with the girls yesterday evening. Actually I had it mainly with Esther (as always) and felt a bit sorry about Sarah getting caught in the middle but that's just the way it went. It's a bit of a shame that the end was a bit nasty, but I'm still feeling better because of it.

Our final fight erupted around the question of whether they should chip in some money for the windscreen. I most certainly thought they did, Esther most certainly thought they would not have to. Sarah was mainly quite and tried to be reasonable but to be honest, I was so pissed off with Esthers attitude that I didn't feel like being reasonable at all.

The bridges are a-burning

The way I see it is that if you share a care with someone for two weeks than your (financial) responsibilities extend to slightly more than just paying for fuel and oil. Let's say you puncture a tire - that's something you would obviously share, I think. On the other hand, if the motor falls out or the radiator explodes than that's not really your problem but the problem of the person owning the car. But again I think it makes a difference whether you hitch a ride for a day or a few weeks. Let's say you only hitch for a day, then I'd say you wouldn't even have to pay for the puntured tire. But if you are travelling together for a long time, you should even pay some money for "wear and tear", even if it's just a gesture. An considering that it was Esther who failed to stop and get out of the way of that road train I certainly thought that it was understood that the costs would be shared. Obviously I was mistaken. Needless to say that our discussion got a wee bit heated and that we probably could have dealt with it far more reasonable, but on my part there simply was a lot of stowed aggression that blew a vent when faced with this attitude. You see, as far as I was concerned it wasn't really the money - it was the fucking attitude! After all they had saved more than 300 AUD on transport and probably another 100 AUD on accomodation by travelling with me. I mean, she even said things like: "If you didn't want something like that to happen, you shouldn't let us drive!" That's as if you invite someone to your house, he accidentally smashes a vase and then says: "If you didn't want something like that to happen you shouldn't have invited me around." That's really ridiculous. In the end they put in some money, though nowhere close to what their share would have been.

No, you can't keep the car!!?!?!!

As you might (they didn't) understand I didn't really feel like leaving my car to them for another day after this incident. I had left it to them for the two days before since I didn't really need it since I was staying at the hostel and they didn't have another "home". Of course that made Esther even more pissed off, but again - what was she thinking? So I just drove them to their campsite and dropped them off their, even though I was very tempted to simply park the car at my hostel, take their stuff out of the car and tell them to call a taxi. But that seemed a bit excessive to me, even though I was very tempted to change my mind when Esther kept bitching on the way.

Ah well, it was good bye and good riddance. And I didn't bury them in the desert either, as some people have suggested before.

Who's next?

Of course this means I either need new people to share the car with or travel by myself. I'm quite tempted to do the latter but put up notices in the hostels anyhow. And in fact it seems like I won't be travelling by myself: The three Scottish girls I was in Karijini with are looking for a lift to Kununarra, about 1.000 km away from here, which is about a three days drive. Considering that I already spent two days with them on our tour in Karijini, including getting through an emergency, I think that this would probably be a good solution. Travel with them for three days and then maybe head on to Darwin by myself. Btw: Someone asked before why I was travelling with girls and not with guys. The answer is pretty simple: Guys don't look for lifts. Since yesterday I got calls from six girls who'd like to share the car but not a single guy!