28 Mar
Location
Home
Days adrift.  Click here to see our best and worst experiences so far.
4994
Number of flights.  Click here to go to the itinerary page.
35
Bus, train and taxi rides.  Click here to see all posts relating to transport. (56 posts)
185
Miles walked.  Click here to see all posts relating to walking and trekking. (43 posts)
581
Countries visited.  Click here to see what we think of them. (14 posts)
15
Number of species spotted.  Click here to go to our wildlife page.
1157
Photos taken.  Click here to go to the photo gallery. (105 posts)
13288
Rainy days.  Click here to find posts relating to the weather. (50 posts)
63
Number of times scammed.  Click here to read all about it!  (2 posts)
1
Otters spotted.  Click here to go to our website about otters: amblonyx.com
45
 
...two travellers in search of the world's wildlife

11 April 2011

Buses and hot chocolate

10th April 2011

I’ve skipped a day. We’re taking it a bit easy in Sydney, not trying to tick off all the sights of the city. To be honest we’re not much like that anyway; I’d rather wander around an interesting neighbourhood and look at the shops and houses than make sure I’ve seen all the key historical and cultural icons of a city. So that’s what we were up to yesterday, exploring our neighbourhood.

We’ve been using public transport a lot, of course. It’s not dissimilar from London with buses and trains the main options. And like most visitors to London, in Sydney we’ve mainly used the trains and our own feet. Buses are a problem if you’re not familiar with a city. There’s very seldom a map available showing the bus routes, so if you’re at A and you need to get to B it’s hard to know which bus to take unless a friendly local can tell you. Similarly, most larger scale city maps don’t show bus stops at all, so whereas you can usually find your way to the nearest train/underground station from wherever you happen to be, finding the nearest bus stop can be a more random affair.

And yet if you talk to people who live and work in London (and, presumably, Sydney) they’ll tell you that they use the bus all the time and much prefer it to descending into the underground. Someone clever needs to come up with a simple mechanism to give visitors and tourists everything they need to use the bus network, just as the London Underground map did for the tube.

This evening we’re curled up in bed trying not to get colds. When we hopped on a southbound train towards the Royal National Park this morning it was lovely and sunny, and it was still pretty nice through the first two hours of our ramble in the park. Then the rain came. Sydney attacked us with stealth weather: four days of relentless sun to lull you into going out in T-shirts with no thought of putting rain jackets in your rucksack, then blam! Downpour. We got drenched on the two hours back, and then the hour long train journey nicely chilled us. The only blessing worth counting was that we didn’t have to wait long on the cold blowy platform. Luckily there is hot chocolate here.

Related Images:


Leave a Reply