dangerous times 2

2) New Zealand
driving back down from the northernmost tip of the country, we were on a gravel road, the kind that's dry, dangerous, and sees at least an accident a day. we were barely doing 40kph. i noticed that my boyfriend was driving on the right hand side of the road, which in NZ is the wrong side. i didn't say anything until a car came the other way. i pointed out where we were, and he said he knew, he'd lost control of the car, i should hold on to something. damn. on the left side of the road, there was a cliff going up, on the right a cliff going down. this was not good. my boyfriend moved towards the left. the car coming the other way didn't see a thing. just after they passed us, we went up the cliffside, turned halfway over, somehow got back down again and stopped 1.5m from the edge. everything happened in slow motion. and funnily enough, all i could think of was my glasses, cos if i survived this, i needed them to see. at some point during the manoeuvre, we'd both closed our eyes, and it took a while before we even thought about opening them. after some silence, he asked me if i was ok. i said i thought i was. him? he thought so, too. that's when we opened our eyes. amazingly, between the two of us, there was just a scratch. the car, however, was totalled. we got out very slowly, trying not to look at how close we were to the edge. i never asked him how he managed to stop. a car stopped. they'd seen the whole thing. she was a doctor. she took a quick look at us while her husband called a tow truck. apart from whiplash and shock, we were ok. since that day, i've been scared shitless of any kind of slipping motion from cars' wheels.