"...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.

good flight choice

This was a semi-serious attempt at getting from Canberra to Melbourne cheaply.

Tiger delayed as usual. Qantas cancelled - I didn't expect that. In fact I was going to buy a seat on that flight. But Virgin Blue ended up cheaper.
I got to the airport using the Airliner bus. I was hoping to get off at Brindabella Business Park and save over half the fare but the driver said that due to some territory issues, they were kicked out of there by the local bus company.There were four people on the bus.

My flight, DJ286, departed on time. The seats were comfortable and they give free earphones which aren't required to be returned.
Breakdown of flight:
Measurements taken from TI ez430 Chronos wristwatch and gives an indication of cabin pressurisation.

• 1937 push off from terminal 620m
• 1944 runway rush 580m
• 2014 begin descent 2680m
• 2040 landing gear down 1680m (screen reports 290m)
• 2044 runway rush 129m
• 2050 terminal 150m (screen reports 127m)
• 2054 outside terminal
• 2100 caught 901 bus

The bus driver was quite nice. He advised me not to follow my journey planner which originally suggested changing at Broadmeadows for a train. So I ended up changing at The Pines for a 286 bus. That meant that I didn't go into zone 1 at all, saving a bit of money. The driver of the 286 bus had a masters in accounting. We caught up to the 901 bus again at Blackburn and exchanged greetings. I got home at around 2310.

foods

I think I've found a kind of sliced bread that makes sandwiches more than tolerable again. For some reason Buttercup Country Split seems to go down well. Though it might be because there's not much of it - not being very dense. I think the more expensive breads put me off bread. Another 20 more cans of tuna until I am released from my burden. I have about 30 business days left in my internship so that means about 10 days allocated to tuna-sandwich-free lunches.

As an aside, Black and Gold (IGA's home brand) chocolate covered ice cream sticks seem quite good value. The ice cream seems a bit airy though.

Perhaps it's a common theme. o.O