One of the things that still baffles me about Australia is the process of putting "petrol" into a car. Fortunately we rarely drive our car, so we only have to fill our tank about once every 4 to 6 weeks. However, when that time rolls around, I am quickly reminded of the differences between here and the States.
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| Signage at our local servo |
"Petrol" is what goes in the tank. This is the same stuff that is called gasoline in America. However, "gas" in Australia is propane, or what you would use for your grill (barbie). Some cars here actually run on "gas" (also called LPG), which you can also get at the "petrol" station. Are you confused yet?! Therefore, because people are generally not putting "gas" in cars, the place is not called the "gas station", it is called the "service station". Of course Australians love to shorten words, so it is actually called the "servo".
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| A gas tank in Australia |
The things I've described so far are just formalities, so while it may get a bit confusing, those differences in terminology do not actually affect the process of filling up the tank. The next two oddities, however, can be annoying.
Most servos are not equipped for us to pay at the pump. Therefore, we have to pump the petrol, wait for it to finish, then walk inside to pay. I cannot remember the last time I had to walk into a gas station in America to pay! Also, while pumping, there is no latch to lock the handle while the tank is being filled, so people actually have to stand at the pump and hold the handle the entire time. I really miss the handle lock in winter when it's cold, rainy, and windy outside!
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| Look mom, no hands!! |
I haven't even mentioned the fact that petrol is in litres here due to the use of the metric system, so we have to do a complex conversion to try to figure out miles per gallon if we want to look at the mileage like we are used to in the States. On the bright side, our local servo has free air for our tyres (yes, tires are spelled differently in Australian English!), which almost makes up for all of those other crazy differences.
From that first picture, it looks like petrol prices in Australia aren't as bad as I expected - about US$4.50 per gallon if I'm doing the volume and currency conversions correctly. More expensive than here in the States, but much less than in Europe.
ReplyDeleteYou are right, Josh, petrol prices are not too bad here. That being said, the price has now gone up to AUD$1.45 per litre. Over the past 3+ years I'd say the average price of petrol has been somewhere in the AUD$1.30-ish range. Petrol was more expensive in New Zealand when we visited there in 2013, even with the NZD being much lower value than the AUD and the USD.
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