Most embarrassing moment

I am going to publish this now as I cannot imagine that we will have another more embarrassing moment on this journey.

A couple of days ago we took my brother Garry and his wife Jan to Les Baux, a stunning hilltop village and chateau remains about 180kms from Lodeve (more about Les Baux later).

After visiting the village we returned to our car intent on driving down to Cassis, on the Mediterranean, so that Garry could fulfill his ambition to swim in that sea. As we pulled away from the carpark I noticed the fuel tank was only half full, and the digital display was showing only 400kms left. This was a (puzzling) concern as I had filled the car that morning so there should have been 80% of the fuel left.

We drove on, with me thinking that the fuel level sensor would catch up after a kilometer or two, but it didn’t. About 5 or 6 kms on we decided to stop and look for evidence of a leak. Garry and I both looked under the car and sure enough there were large drops of liquid falling on the ground, from somewhere in the engine compartment – “Sacre Blue” we have a leak! We lifted the bonnet but could not see anything (the Peugeot has a very compact engine compartment), so I decided I should ring the Peugeot 24 hour roadside assistance service which we were entitled to do. As both of our French mobiles had run out of credit we had no choice but to drive on until we found a public phone box. We weren’t far from the major town of Arles so thought it would not be difficult to find the Peugeot service agent there.

However 10kms short of Arles we went through the small village of Fontvieille, and saw a phone-box right alongside a convenient carpark. It was starting to get late in the day so thought the sooner I made contact with the roadside assistance the better for everybody – so we stopped. I made the call which was answered by a very polite and patient Frenchman with quite acceptable English language skills. After asking me lots of questions about who I was, what car we had etc., I had to try and tell him where we were – exactly! It took him at least 5 minutes to locate the village, based on my spelling which unfortunately was slightly astray. I kept leaving out the second “I”, and neither of us could understand why Google was not coming up with the answer. Eventually we got it sorted, and he assured me he would have a mechanic there within the hour, who would try to resolve the problem on the spot; if not the vehicle would be towed into Arles, and if necessary we would be given a replacement car. All good – I thought, so we wandered off to find a café in what turned out to be a pretty little village. After a while I left the others and returned to the car in case the mechanic turned up without phoning first (I could still receive phone calls on my exhausted SIM card).

I got the call a little while later, this time from an impolite and impatient Frenchman who did not have a word of English, and I was struggling with his aggressively delivered French. He was in a tow truck and trying to find us. Somehow I managed to direct him to the carpark, and he proceeded to lift the car straight onto the truck without having a look at the “problem” first. He turned out to be just a tow truck driver, not a mechanic. He was a big dark guy (second row forward I reckon) with a classic Gallic face sporting a permanent scowl. He was quite agitated as it was late and he needed to get us back to the garage before it closed. We were having a difficult time communicating, but eventually we understood that the 4 of us had to pile in the cab with him – interesting. Gaye reckoned she has always wanted to ride in a tow truck. We had many laughs on the way into Arles, some at the drivers expense so we were hoping his lack of English was not just a ploy.We arrived at the very conveniently located garage that we could have very easily found if we had just kept going earlier and thus avoided all the drama. There was only one person left there, and he had zero English as well, so describing the “problem” clearly was challenging. Once he understood he asked me to reverse the car a bit so he could examine the puddle on the ground left by the “leak”. It was only very small but he dipped his finger in and had a smell (and taste) – it was water. He excitedly (in classic French style) told me it was simply condensation from the air conditioner, which of course I did not accept because it was clear that we had lost nearly half a tank of fuel, and the filler cap had NOT been interfered with. I lay on the ground to have a close-up sniff myself – and then VERY sheepishly got back on my feet accepting that it was not a puddle of diesel fuel (“gazole”). But why was the fuel gauge giving an incorrect reading? Guess what, as we drove away with our tails firmly between our legs, the digital display was telling us we had 780kms left in the tank, and the gauge was miraculously now showing more than 3/4. Perhaps getting the car on and off the truck had somehow disturbed the fuel in the tank enough to kick the sensor into action. I think the truck driver and the garage man will dine out for years on the story of the “crazy incompetent Englishman with absolutely no knowledge of automotive technology”. I had not let it be known that we were Aussies.

Apart from my acute embarrassment, the fallout from this incident, meant that Garry missed his longed for swim in the Med, and we missed a special dinner that Samir was going to cook for us that night.