Taking a break from Byron Bay for a moment…
For the past six months there’s been a monotonous deep guttural tone bleeding out across my suburb. It starts at 10am and finishes around 6pm every Saturday and Sunday. At its peak the windows rattle and the doves nesting in the garage scarper leaving their eggs unguarded. No I don’t live near a monastery, but I’m seriously contemplating moving to one.
Several years ago a neighbour moved in and quickly set about producing an interesting collection of sounds from his shed. A few years later Mr Mysterious’s shed based activities resulted in sparks flying randomly across my backyard. As a result I was frequently left pondering the menace of wayward fireworks, or the recklessness of youth, convinced that the teenagers up the road were aiming flares at my palm tree.
As the weekends, months and years dragged on it became clear that Mr Mysterious was hiding out from his family working on something, something big. I’m sure you can imagine the amount of pondering that went on, on my side of the fence. Eventually it became too much and I had to develop a coping strategy, that or book myself in for therapy. I’d got to the point where five minutes of engine drone instantly felt like five days. It was the last noise inside my head as I lay down to sleep each night. My strategy was simple, flight. Each weekend as soon as the tinkering started I’d leave the house, returning at sunset when peace prevailed.
Finally last month the mystery was solved.
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| Thanks to racin jason |
Mr Mysterious had been building a Monaro, the much loved 1970’s muscle car, recently unveiled as Eric Bana’s passion in his movie, Love The Beast .
Years on the car was about to graduate with a trip over the pits. However before graduation caps could be thrown jubilantly in the air, there was one final weekend of intense, 18 hour droning. Unbeknown to me another neighbour had also reached breaking point, but braver than me he opted for fight mode and declared war……
3pm Sunday afternoon the drone was in full swing interspersed with tapping, hammering and intermittent revving.
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© The Ponder Room
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3.10pm a new, unfamiliar drone wafted across the back fence growing louder and louder.
The deep throat rasping of the Gyoto Monks, challenged the Monaro engine for airspace.
The battle continued for several hours. Across the neighbourhood people focused on the meditative tones that conveyed happiness. Depending on which camp they fell into, this was either the monks chanting, or the sound of a car engine nearing birth.
Eventually something changed.
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| thanks to racon jason |
Emerging from the garage inch by inch, the Monaro was born. The bodywork was a high gloss, deep gold, or week old baby poo, depending on your perspective. Taking baby steps out onto the driveway the car tip toed onto the street, then realising its independence, roared up the road. Passing the Bainbridge house at number six, the resident Ducati motorbike dipped its headlight in shame, knowing it had just lost the title of noisiest roadster in the street.
The whole experience has left me pondering….
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No doubt Eric Bana’s neighbours went through a similar experience, but at least they got to look at Eric draped over the hood every now and then, and maybe, just maybe get invited to the movie premier. My advice, if you’re going to tinker away on a car for years, at least give your neighbours some visual relief.
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Having researched domestic violence across Australia, I regularly commend the Men’s Shed managers. However, and not meaning to belittling the issue, I’d like to suggest that they extend the idea to a communal car building workshop area, where men can rev their engines to their hearts content. In the meantime I marvel at the low incidence of domestic violence comitted by females.
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With the increasing subdivision in inner suburbs what will happen with these car loving men, will the lack of shed space mean they are simply bred out?
4 Comments
For a while I thought you might leave a couple of houses away from me. Alas, although we have the same noises, our neighbour is doing up something much less exciting – a very dumpy old caravan. And he thinks evenings (usually just as we put our little boy to bed) are a perfect time to do the loudest parts. Hmm …
Ah, the age old dream of restoring a beast. At least your neighbour actually achieved it, so many don’t and that would have been way worse for those of you who had put up with the noise. To know you had endured it for nothing. Well done living through it. Great work.
Ta.Weird how now it’s done it never comes out of the garage.
Haha, that sounds about right. Men are weird for sure.