I wanted a car that could be both a means of living and a companion on the road.
In Australia, I bought a 2005 NISSAN X-TRAIL T30.
The first car under my own name wasn’t just transportation—it felt like a symbol of freedom.
With it, I went to the ocean with friends, gathered around beach fires, explored waterfalls and rivers, and even spent nights by the shore.
Having that car alone made life open up in an instant.
Eventually, a close friend came from Japan, and we decided to take a road trip from Brisbane to Sydney.
It would have been nine hours straight on the highway, but we chose to take the long way inland.
Roads cutting through open ranches, endless straight stretches, climbs over mountains and descents into valleys.
A trip that could have taken nine hours ended up taking fifteen.
Break with My Buddy
To save money, we laid out sleeping bags in the car at night.
Both over 180 centimeters tall, we crammed ourselves inside, shivering in the midwinter cold.
On some nights we covered our faces with handkerchiefs just to make it through until morning.
Inconvenience somehow carried its own kind of joy.
Between Discomfort and Freedom
The trouble came in the middle of that journey.
White smoke suddenly rose from the X-TRAIL’s exhaust.
We pulled over in front of a lonely Domino’s Pizza.
A mechanic I knew told me over the phone, “Don’t drive it anymore today.”
But there was no way we were going to spend the night in that parking lot.
We pushed on through the dark roads and reached a nearby campsite.
There, an elderly couple had parked their camper van.
When I struck up a conversation, the old man laughed and said, “You’re lucky, I’m a mechanic.”
It was the kind of coincidence that felt almost unreal.
He even shared the facility’s code, and for the first time in days we showered, hot water, no less.
The warmth loosened us to the core; something so small made us feel alive again.
That small kindness was what carried us through the night.
The next morning, after an inspection, the oil had turned milky white, the engine was finished.
Unpaved roads, steep climbs, and the age of the car itself had finally caught up with it.
A Perfect Day to Break Down
Unsure what to do, I called my father, who had walked further down the road of life.
Not to complain, but to ask what he would do if it were him.
The first thing I heard on the other end was laughter.
“So you’ve finally hit that kind of wall, huh?”
He must have faced similar problems when he was young and gotten through them, one by one.
That laugh carried a strange kind of authority.
After a pause, my father said in his broken Japanese:
“What, you’re going back now? No way. Pay the money if you have to, but keep traveling. The chance for you two to do this together won’t come often.”
Those words lifted the weight from my shoulders.
“True. Better to spend the money and make memories than go home now.”
With that, we rented a car and hit the road again.
A 90-Degree Encounter
Byron Bay / Between Light and Tide
The broken X-TRAIL was left behind in the mountain town of Armidale.
Fortunately, a local mechanic bought it from us, and that was the end of it.
Parting was bittersweet, but it gave me the freedom to move, living on an island for a while, later heading west to Perth.
Letting go of control was unsettling, but it opened up new roads I couldn’t have seen otherwise.
It was only a short time, but the days with that car remain vivid.
Even the money I spent feels cheap if I think of it as buying those memories.
The Song of Behind the Scene
– The Trip / Still Corners –
