Caught smoking

As I've previously blogged, the train trip from Sydney to Melbourne takes 11 hours or more.   Obviously a long time to go between ciggies if you're a smoker, even if you're not going the full distance.   At many stations, only one or two doors are opened, and even at the bigger stations, passengers are strongly discouraged from getting off the train.  In fact, early in the trip an announcement was made that, because it's illegal to smoke on station platforms, it was no use smokers even trying to get off the train to have a quick light up.

A no smoking zone

Evidently all this was too much for one fairly young traveller on our train.  I happened to be moving about the train at the very moment that the train crew confronted him with the information that a remotely-monitored smoke detector had gone off in the toilet from which he had just emerged.

His denials didn't carry much weight as the crew (and I) could readily smell that he'd just had a cigarette.


He was escorted to the train manager's office, so I don't know what happened.  However, a few minutes later, a "final reminder" announcement was made that anyone caught smoking on the train would be fined and/or off-loaded at the next station.  Being off-loaded?   An option on the train, but wouldn't work so well for an airline!

By train from Sydney to Melbourne

We took the train from Sydney to Melbourne.  In hindsight, I'm not quite sure why, but I suppose I wanted to be able to say that I'd done it.  And, I admit, there was a good fare available!

Well, there were a couple of positives, but there were a whole lot of negatives.

On the positive side, departing from Central involved just a short taxi ride from our accommodation, and the taxi pulled up almost next to where the train was.   No security, no hassles, just walk on board.  On the train, the seats are comfortable with a seat pitch of a metre (and that's in economy).   You can walk around and you don't need seat belts (out of force of habit I kept trying to do one up!)

On the negative side, it's a long trip.   Yes, XPT trains “can” run at 120 km, but for a lot of the time they don't.    There are stations to stop at, speed restrictions, curves and hills.  The trip from Sydney to Melbourne (about 960 kms, according to Wikipedia) is “scheduled” to take about 11 hours, which means the average speed is less than 90 kmph.  For a while, I enjoyed the ever-changing view, but once we got about half way, I did start thinking that perhaps I could have made better use of my day!  Fortunately, I had a good book to read.

There's food (and beer and wine) available for purchase, but although it's adequate, it's pretty basic.   There's no lounge car or even a place to eat what you buy except at your seat.

I was aware when I booked that the train only ran as far as Broadmeadows because of infrastructure work interfering with the run into Southern Cross.  I guess this should have sounded warning bells, but they weren't too loud, so I thought, oh well.

On the outskirts of Sydney, our train obviously got stuck behind a suburban train, which meant slow running for a while.  Then when we ought to have been powering up the hill to Moss Vale, things weren't quite as fast as I would have expected from an XPT train.  Somewhat later, we were informed that, yes, we were behind schedule, because one of the train's power units was not operating at full capacity.   Result, by the time we reached the outskirts of Melbourne, the train was over 30 minutes late.   Then, just before Broadmeadows station, where we were to disembark, to come to a stop.   We were told that, sorry, coz the train was 35 minutes late, it had missed its “landing slot”, and there would be a further delay of 30 minutes before we could get off.   So near, yet so far.  Finally, after waiting nearly 35 minutes at a place called Roxborough Park (actually, Somerton Loop for the gunzels) we got to the Broadmeadows platform, a grand total of 75 minutes late.  The transfer to buses went smoothly, and I suspect that the time the bus took to get into the city, down the freeway, was probably on a par with the time the train would have taken negotiating Melbourne's western suburbs.  Just the same, it wasn't the best end to a long day.

Bottom line?   I've ticked the "been there, done that" box, and will leave inter-city train travel in Australia in the future to the main users of the train, who are people travelling to and from the towns along the way to the "big smoke".

West Head and Palm Beach

We had a lovely dinner with M and G at their home, and next day they were kind enough to take us to West Head for the view and then to Barrenjoey restaurant at Palm Beach for lunch.

View of Lion Island from West Head

I had never been to West Head, overlooking Pittwater and the Hawkesbury, and it is many, many years since I had been to Palm Beach (and could hardly remember it), so it was a day of great interest and discovery (and, of course, good company).

Whale Beach

Pittwater

Manly to The Spit Walk

I was unsure whether to start at The Spit or at Manly, but it turns out that my decision to start at the Manly end was a good one.  The section of the track from Sandy Bay to the The Spit is closed, and although an occasional shuttle bus is provided from the Clontarf Reserve, it apparently goes back towards Manly.   What provision is made for people who arrive at The Spit looking for the path, I don't know.

Starting at the Manly end, the walk from Manly to The Spit is a sealed path along the beach front and past quite dense housing, but further along the track ranges from scrambling over rocks at Forty Baskets Beach (I wasn't sure that I was heading in the correct direction but fortunately was able to ask), up and down quite steep steps in parts of Debroyd Head national park and along bush tracks of various types. Signage is a little inconsistent and while it's quite good in parts, in other parts, even with my map, I took a couple of wrong turns and at one point missed a whole section, walking instead along suburban streets.

The views are very good, as I had expected, and in parts of the Debroyd Head park, you could be in the middle of remote bushland (save for the occasion intrusion of beeping from reversing construction equipment in the distance).  A lot of the vegetation is coastal heath, including banksias and the like.    Even in June, there were some wildflowers in bloom (not too many, though).

As mentioned, the section of the track from Sandy Bay to the The Spit is closed, so I took quite a lengthy detour along the streets to come out on the main road above The Spit, where I was able to catch a bus.    There was an hourly free shuttle from the Clontarf Reserve back to somewhere, but I didn't bother with this as it would have involved a 50 minute wait.

I had hoped to stop for a coffee along the way, but if there are any coffee establishments at the beaches I passed, they're off the track and I didn't see them (I ws later told I ought to have looked harder!).   The walk took a little over 3½ hours, which was definitely time well spent.

On the path near Manly

Manly ferries passing  just inside the heads

Steps in the Debryd Head section

Harbour view

To Sydney

We booked a while back to spend a few days in Sydney, so we flew up on Monday. The Jetstar computer permitted me to check in on-line – but of course we still had to wait in line to drop our baggage (no do-it-yourself bag drop for Jetstar) and answer the “dangerous goods” question. So I don't know whether Qantas/Jetstar have got over their issues with me yet, or not. And everyone in front of us at the baggage check-in seemed to have issues of some sort. However, we had adequate time, so we couldn't complain. There was another long queue to board the plane, but I was pleased to see efforts (even if somewhat token) to enforce the carry-on baggage size limit. I guess when when an airline charges extra to check-in a bag, it serves as an incentive for everyone to try and carry as much as possible into the cabin with them.

The train into the city from the airport in Sydney was pleasant (of course, this line does have the newest trains), and we ate dinner at a casual Italian restaurant in The Rocks area. Impulsively, we jumped on the Manly ferry to occupy our evening and were rewarded with a nice view of the bridge by night but little else (in particular, Manly is very ordinary after dark)!

One lesson I've re-learned: re-activate my mobile broadband account before leaving home. Yes, we arrived in Sydney, and I found I hadn't brought with me the necessary log-in information!   As good luck would have it (certainly not good management), somewhere deep in my emails was a message with just enough information to get me going.