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| 10:23am |
Good gravy, it's late. But this time,
*I* didn't get to go to bed until after midnight, what with the late
arrival back from the day trip to Hobart, checking email, that sort
of thing. |
| 10:36am |
Waiting for the humanities to pack and what-not, I figured I could
bore you with a photo of the view
from the room on Level 4. Not quite downtown, sort of suburb-facing,
and yes,our luck ran out and it's raining today. Phooey. |
| 10:59am |
After checking out to meet the 11am
schedule, we toss the bulk of our luggage into the storage room (one
of those "use at your own risk" deals), and head out into
the streets. |
| 11:03am |
The rainy streets, as it were. The plan of the day is to catch the
free City Circle tram (they're burgundy in colour, usually, and stop
at the burgundy tram stops). A good plan, and the price is right. |
| 11:16am |
More clever than most, we remain under
protection of awnings until we figure the tram is about to arrive.
It seemed a solid plan. |
| 11:19am |
We hop aboard, and it seems the youth have overrun the world. Well,
just on this tram, where there are a myriad of 13- and 14-year-olds
doing the things that 13- and 14-year-olds do. |
| 11:26am |
Tubby was impressed at the adept nature
of how the Metropolitan Fire Brigade gets places -- largely by driving
along the tram tracks in the middle of the roads. Two engines, in
fact. |
| 11:27am |
We then passed the culinary college, and given the number of people
outside wearing white and those floffy white chef's hats, I figured
a batch of Cornish pasties met with an untimely end. (Or maybe the
end wasn't timely enough, and they turned crispy.) All told, three
fire engines were parked outside. (The pictures were tricky, since
the windows were all steamed up in the tram car.) |
| 11:29am |
We made our way to, and stopped at,
the Telstra
Dome stop. If you're curious what a gaggle of kids look
like, they're pictured along the left side (completely), and a
bit of the right side (almost completely, but not entirely pictured). |
| 11:41am |
The children alight from the tram, with a middle-aged chap... Mr.
King, apparently an instructor or teacher. Yes, they're using the
free tram to get somewhere for a school trip. (And you thought only
U.S. schools had to cut corners.) |
| 11:48am |
We arrive at our stop across from
Flinders Street station, and hop out and into a reasonably heavy downpour.
The rain, seeking the path of least resistance, is flowing
down into the track grooves and then downhill. Kinda pretty. |
| 11:51am |
Crossing into Federation Square, we look back to get a glimpse of
St.
Paul's Cathedral there across the street. We wandered around the
Square for a bit looking for the Federation Bells located here somewhere,
but weren't able to find them. (But honestly, the downpour also somewhat
dampened our interest in a prolonged search.) |
| 12:01pm |
In the quest to form a plan, we set
up camp in the train
station lobby (just before you need a ticket to get in). It was
dry, marginally warm, and we got to look like tourists who were lost,
wet, and keen on snacking on Ritz crackers. |
| 12:29pm |
We opted to find a cinema and catch a film (if we could find one
I haven't seen, or even two or three), passing a group of school-age
kids whose teacher had the good sense to keep them off public transportation,
even if it meant marching
them through the rain. |
| 12:36pm |
Very
funny, kids. Now, which one of you has the ladder? We are trying
to honour the work of Robert Burke and William Wills, after all. (It's
actually part of the Sids and Kids "red nose day" program.) |
| 12:47pm |
Rainy days pretty much look
the same everywhere, I guess. |
| 12:56pm |
We arrived at Collins Place, which
is sort of a combination hotel (Seville), a mini-mall of shops, cinema,
and other stuff (and even four wireless internet access points, bummer
we left the laptop behind). |
| 1:00pm |
We split up, having found two different films to see. Rachel tootled
off to Wondrous Oblivion,
whereas Tubby and I ended up in Twin
Sisters (links are to the spoilers on both). |
| 1:12pm |
Killing some time, I opt to catch
up on my mailings and send out a few postcards. I even went to the
trouble, for a few of them, to even write a little note, by wing instead
of the usual way I send postcards. |
| 1:30pm |
Tubby and I headed in to our film, and found the seats quite cozy;
you could even lift the arm between every other seat, if you were
a couple who wanted to snuggle or something. But not us; snuggling
with Tubby is just creepy to me. About the theatres we've found here
and New Zealand, a couple of things. They don't freak out when you
have bags or outside food, but you can't bring in alcohol -- at least
of those we've been in, they all are fully licensed to serve beer
and wine (and outside drinks aren't allowed). |
| 2:30pm |
Briefly, the plot is twin sisters
are torn apart in 1926 at age 6 when their parents die. One goes to
live in Holland with a well-to-do distant relatives, the other stays
in Germany to live with peasant farmer types. They finally meet again
in 1939, but the demands of their lives separate them again as war
breaks out. Here,
they've met in Poland where the one sister, Anna, works as a maid
for a wealthy Countess, who is in the good graces of local Nazi officials. |
| 4:22pm |
Our film ended and we hit the streets again. Instead of annoying
10-10-### numbers for calling collect, it's just 12
550 for call reverse here, nationwide. |
| 4:24pm |
Near St. Paul's from earlier, I bumped
into the
statue of Captain Matthew Flinders (1774-1814); a navigator and
such. Now, maybe I'm just being silly, but if he's a famous navigator
and stuff, why is the statue of two strong men pushing his boat off
shore... wouldn't that mean he ran aground? Some navigator, if that's
the case. |
| 4:26pm |
I don't know if I'm Melbored
enough to go to Tasmania, but as an ad campaign, it's not bad. |
| 4:32pm |
It's been nothing but fire engines
all day. But I just can't help
myself. |
| 4:41pm |
We hopped along the City Circle tram to head back to the hotel,
but only after a stop at Victoria Harbour (which also offers the back
view of Telstra Dome and other stuff.) |
| 4:56pm |
We hop off at the Victoria Harbour
stop, and as threatened, the back of the Telstra
Dome. |
| 4:59pm |
The sunset
with the Central Pier sort of silhouetted up in the background there.
Behind us, and across from the dome, is NAB
(National Australia Bank) and their building purported to be a 21st
century "groundscraper," to eventually hold 4,000 employees. |
| 5:23pm |
We hopped off the tram, and headed
over to the Big W to pick up some snacky items for the trip, and to
Subway, to avoid having to pay outrageous prices for third-rate food
aboard the train. |
| 5:27pm |
Along the way, yes, another fire
engine whizzing by. |
| 5:46pm |
We got back to the hotel, gathered
up our bags, and found that yes, the reasonably well-dressed guy outside
was indeed the driver of our ride to the train station. |
| 5:57pm |
We hopped into the car driven by Peter, who's a lifelong Melbournian
(if that's the correct term for a resident, anyway). He's traveled
a bit, counting Greece and Malaysia as the favorites along his journeys. |
| 6:12pm |
The short ride was lengthened by the
evening rush traffic, but we got to have a look around the goofy street
setups caused by construction activities near and at the train station. |
| 6:17pm |
We wandered a bit around the Stewart Street train station until
finding the right place. (The station is also in a state of upheaval,
being in the midst of a 2+ year project to "tart it up"
for the Commonwealth Games in 2006.) |
| 6:24pm |
The ticket
check-in area, in its infinite glory, considering it's in a couple
of portable trailers. From there, we're sent across the path to the
other trailer for baggage check-in. |
| 6:35pm |
By following the yellow line (at the directions of Peter French)
to Platform 2, which will load up about 7:20pm |
| 7:02pm |
After walking about the terminal a
bit with Tubby, we ended up with a glut of train photos. Never mind
sunset was around 5pm and it's dark. |
| 7:24pm |
Close enough to Peter's prediction that we couldn't argue. Much. |
| 7:28pm |
Just before boarding, Tubby figured
it was his last chance to get a Pepsi before having to pay train prices.
The $2.20 for a 600ml (20 ounce, basically) bottle wasn't bad, but
it seems the machine prefers to eat money. Unwisely, Tubby fed the
$2 coin in first, and by virtue of the lever getting stuck
in the middle, no soda, and he's down $2 for the effort. |
| 7:30pm |
Soda-less, we make our way our way to berth 13 and 14 in Car A and
settle in. (The check-in counter actually recognized my being, as
there are three seats in here.) By comparison, this is MUCH nicer
than the train coach that brought us to Melbourne three days ago. |
| 7:41pm |
Not the best photos, but what the
berth basically looks like (here
and here,
hazy flash, sorry), and the adjoining toilet and shower (here
and here).
(The bunks in the "sleep" position will be along once sleep
is due.) We also chat briefly with a couple from South
Carolina, who are also doing a whirlwind New Zealand-Australia
trip. Great minds, etc., etc. |
| 7:49pm |
We pull from the station and are well underway. From here on out,
well, nothing much to do until we pull into Sydney about 6:25am, or
a delightful 10 1/2 hours or so from now. (But, we are saving on a
hotel for the right, which is something, eh?) |
| 8:36pm |
We stop somewhat inexplicitly, essentially
in the middle of nowhere. Curious. |
| 8:49pm |
Noel, the supervising steward (who also was the bloke who checked
our ticket upon boarding) announced we have stopped due to a signal
failures ahead. Once the signal malfunction has been corrected, we'd
get under way. In other news, we now have rain gently knocking against
the left windows and room of the train car. |
| 8:55pm |
The train is again moving forward.
Aren't you relieved? (And, the last two dinners still need to be picked
up in Car C, so if you ordered the roast beef, it's getting cold,
or so the general announcement went.) |
| 10:32pm |
The laptop battery died, and the electrical outlook in the berth
said "shavers only," and while I did try it, either the
outlet is a dud, or it's smart enough to know the computer isn't a
shaver. Phooey. |
| 22:57pm |
With little else to do to occupy my
time, we folded
down the beds and got ready for sleepy eyes. Although, for the
low, low price of AU$20, I could hit
this a few times... but figuring I shouldn't, we just went to
bed. |
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