jeremy.id.au

Sydney was great. Probably ended up spending more time catching up with various friends and contacts than sight seeing. Which is probably better anyway as sight seeing tends to not be as interesting as people. Spent the rest of the time cruising around on the ferries and that kind of thing. Though unfortunately the weather was quite wet for most of the time with rain heavier than any I’ve seen for years. After two nights of staying with a friend in Marrickville, I went to stay with some other people in Birchgrove. Having just missed a ferry that afternoon, I had to catch a bus into the city. However, being a Sunday afternoon the ferries were finishing up and I caught the last bus that run down to Birchgrove so I had no idea how I would get back.

So while in the city I went o an internet cafe so I could look up a bus timetable and maps! I also downloaded some other ferry timetables and a zip file with the entire set of CityRail train timetables to my laptop. So having figured out how to get back, I had a little to eat then decided to return to Birchgrove. While crossing the Anzac Bridge on the bus, I noticed some rain in the distance. This very rain turned out to be bad news, as it wasn’t just a light shower but pouring rain. Though as I got off the bus in Balmain, it seemed to be easing up and I decided to make a dash for it. Though with a 20 minute walk ahead of me and no shelter in sight, the odds of keeping dry didn’t turn out to be in my favour. I got back to Birchgrove drenched from head to toe. Everything on my backpack was drenched, except fortunately my laptop managed to stay dry in its extra layer of protection.

The wet weather continued the very next day though fortunately I was able to borrow an umbrella from my host. Meeting up with muttox at Circular Quay, someone who I’ve spoken to for quite some time on Jabber, we decided to catch a ferry up the Parramatta River. However, it didn’t succeed as the weir was overflowing and instead the ferry terminated at Rydlemere. Nothing much was to be seen at Rydlemere, with heavy rain pouring down off the roof of the ferry and over the windows. At least we did finish the day with some rather tasty dumplings; that was at least more successful.

After all that, it was nice to return home. Though it’s hard to believe that I’ve now been home for a week and a half.

Well okay, I didn’t actually get lost. However, Canberra’s bus network is not at all visitor friendly; perhaps not even all that friendly to its regular users. I was originally going to cycle though the bike provided to me by my host was not quite up to scratch. Couldn’t get the saddle up so wouldn’t have been much fun when it came time to climb back up the hills of Belconnen. No problem though, I was happy to experiment with the buses.

So my first morning there, having arrived the previous afternoon (and had a bit of a look around the city without actually going into any attractions). Having failed with the bike, I found I had just missed the hourly bus servicing the suburb of Aranda. Knowing that the frequent buses run along Belconnen Way, I thought I’d walk up that way. Though it wasn’t another 300 metres around the corner that I actually found a bus stop outside a hospital. However, I then made the mistake of not transferring to another bus at the city interchange to get to Parliament House. Although there is a stop within walkable distance, I was hoping for another stop that was closer. Instead, the bus took me all the way out to Woden out in the suburbs of Canberra. I finally took a bus back to the city and then out to Parliament House (both old and new).

Day three and I finally had everything under control. I figured out that bus stops are indicated as white dots on the bus maps, of which knowing this made quite a difference (though didn’t make up for bus stops being quite sparse in some areas). I managed to get out to the High Court and the National Gallery of Australia before taking a bus back to the other side of the lake to get a ferry. Timing was all good until I decided I wanted to go to the War Memorial, only that I had just missed the early bus to there. Constitutional Ave goes close enough though the buses for this are dispersed all over the city interchange. Finally I asked the information people who gave me the time and bus bay for the next bus along this road fairly quickly. Visited the war memorial then when it was time to get back, it was not clear where the closer bus stopped. Missed the bus before I realised which stop it was leaving from, so had to walk the 10 minutes back down to Constitutional Ave again.

The final day I didn’t use any buses. Instead I walked up Black Mountain to the Telecom Tower, passing a wallaby on the way up. While at the top of the tower, I fielded a phone call from a journalist at a local paper back home about our own public transport woes. I gave Canberra one last look over, before making the descent back down to Aranda, where I saw an Echidna when I was almost near the bottom.

Left Canberra by train, headed for Sydney. The trip was actually far more scenic than I had expected with plenty of bush and deep cuttings through the rock. Takes a bit longer than by bus, though trains tend to be far more comfortable with more leg room, etc.

Photos of Canberra to come.