"...flee into Africa"

http://www.theage.com.au/world/door-ajar-for-gaddafi-to-escape-into-exile-20110329-1ceqw.html

XPT... closest thing to long distance train commuting in Australia

Although it's been over a month since I made the Melbourne to Albury journey by XPT, I thought I'd share a few of the things I noticed about the journey. With a day service and a night service each day, there's not much of a service. Also, without the Vline subsidy I probably wouldn't have taken the journey because Countrylink is quite the ripoff.

The train seems a bit dirtier than I expected.

 
The carriages labelled incorrectly inside (perhaps an additional carriage was added).

Crew announcements seemed to be rather excessive. They mentioned all the normal things about smoking,  food at the kiosk etc. They even spelled out which part of the journey would be serviced by the on-board food and the running schedule. Just when you thought it was all over, the guy comes back on and apologises for interrupting the announcement to answer the phone and continues rambling.

The seats all face the same direction - apparently they are rotated at the end of the journey. There's heaps of legroom. In fact, probably a bit too much because the tray was a bit wobbly at full extension. The top controls and air vents didn't quite align with the seats.

After a short while, the announcements fire up again.

Devonshire tea ready for collection at the kiosk in the middle of the train, for those who had ordered earlier.
And that the milk, sugar and stirrers were next to the kiosk. This point was emphasised repeatedly.

Seymour station had a nice collection of old carriages, but it's too near Melbourne. It would be a crappy journey to travel the rest of the distance [to Canberra] by coach, which was the schedule for weekdays.

Apart from all that, I liked the automatic sliding doors between carriages and the toilets were better than those on my Vline service to Bairnsdale.

Not much to talk about in regards to the coach leg from Albury to Canberra. The only bag that I took was my Ortlieb pannier so it was off the coach and on the bike from the secure basement at work.

cheap public transport

I've had a good run this week - about half of my trips have been free due to the transitional period between Myki and Metcard. Sometimes the bus driver only just switched on the bus so the system isn't ready by the time passengers start boarding. This can be the case even at my preferred stop, 1 kilometre in.

The other, more common way, is from Metcard validator failure. With no more money flowing into the maintenance of that system, I've seen a lot more out-of-order validators. Boarding is especially quick.

sentiments on return

Melbourne is

• windy
• cold
• bad/stale in terms of air in Monash ECSE laboratories

Missing:

• flex time
• Canberra peak buses filled to a comfortable capacity
• avoiding traffic
• relatively flat land
• sleeping in a quiet street
• single level house (makes for going outside so much quicker)
• continuous on-road bike lanes with no parked cars (bike paths are crap due to pedestrians)

young and mobile

My manager told me not to shun job opportunities in other cities, citing that I'm young and mobile (and proven to myself that it can be done). As another interpretation, I'm seeing that as meaning I should cut down on the amount of crap that I hoard. Having so much of this crap (repairable or not and possibly of little use) takes up space and causes more thought when deciding what to take when moving (and how to prevent parents from throwing it out while away).

I think I had similar thoughts after my exchange but now it's looking a bit more serious as a permanent job might indeed take me away from 'home'.

Hopefully some of it can be sold. hehe

Edit: I have at least five convention card holders. These:

10% of the way to a box.