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Visit to Australia in 2024 (page 4) (by Shane Conway)

Page last updated on 27 October 2024

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15th OCTOBER 2024

Seen at the Elizabeth Street terminus of route 57, Z3 class tram 165 awaits departure, with Flinders Street station in the background. On the right of the photo a MacDonalds sign is partly obscured by one of their rivals, while a branch of Coles Supermarket is on the left.

Tuesday October 15th was a leisurely morning, with our first tram journey at 12:38 -- on board 3017 to Collins Street. This time our train journey was from Flinders Street to Gardenvale using two of the Siemens built sets (842M,2571T,841M and 785M,2543T,786M), with a walk to Brighton Beach where we joined Graham and Jacqui Simpson of Musicoast for lunch. The beachside cafe offers views across the bay back towards Saint Kilda and Port Melbourne, but there's no direct transport link. That was followed by a visit to their home and more of their hospitality, as well as discussion of Seekers trivia. We left clutching an autographed copy of his book on the history of the said group and a DVD of their 50th anniversary concert tour, a very generous gesture indeed. The return trip from Gardenvale used 736M,2518T,735M with 761M,2531T,762M -- six more of the Siemens fleet, followed by tram 3021 to Port Melbourne.

16th OCTOBER 2024

7311 AO is a Custom Coaches B44D bodied Scania K230, new in 2011 and seen at the bus interchange at Ringwood railway station.

Wednesday October 16th saw us undertake another train journey on the Belgrave line, this time as far as Ringwood. Named after the town in Hampshire, it is served by trains on both the Belgrave and Lilydale lines. Its former signal box was relocated to the bus interchange opposite the station and now houses a coffee shop. Our transport to Ringwood was a six coach X'Trapolis EMU (44M,1322T,43M and 194M,1397T,193M), with a car trip to Croydon to spend time and have lunch with a former resident of Drogheda and his wife, before getting another train back to Southern Cross (126M,1363T,125M and 928M,1664T,927M). Tram journeys on that day were 3034 from Port Melbourne and 266 on the way back, the latter being the second of its type we travelled on.

17th OCTOBER 2024

Seen arriving at Tarneit station is V Line Alstom Bombardier diesel set 15, working in formation with set 06. Usually its just a single set on each journey. This train was the 14.30 from Southern Cross to South Geelong.

Our final day in Australia, Thursday October 17th involved tram 3011 to Collins Street, with a train journey to Tarneit from Southern Cross, and a visit to meet some of the Dunne family originally from Dublin. On that route the service is provided by V Line diesel sets, built by Bombardier and Alstom. The sets are numbered 00 to 119, all five foot three inch gauge except for 93 to 98 which use British gauge. Outbound was set 65 and return on set 08. Finally the afternoon's travel ended with tram 6092 on route 96 and 3020 on route 109, thus bringing our use of Melbourne public transport to a close. Later that night we returned in the Mazda 3 to Tullamarine, to board an Emirates A380 (A6-EUJ) on flight EK407 to Dubai.

18th OCTOBER 2024

The two Premier Inns Dubai shuttle buses, 97339 with 40446 behind it. These operate on a half hourly frequency linking the hotel with terminals 1 and 3 of the 7,200 acre complex.

Arrival in Dubai was at 05.00 on Friday morning, in spite of which the temperature was already 30 degrees. This time the Premier Inns shuttle was in bus 97339, the sister vehicle to that of our earlier visit. After lunch we returned to the airport and boarded one of the Dubai Metro trains (set 5053) on the red line to Dubai Mall/Burj Khalifa. The latter building (at 828 metres) is the tallest building in the world, while the adjacent shoppping mall has just over 1200 retail units, and is the second largest mall worldwide. All the metro trains are fully automated and driverless. As each station platform has a glass wall, with doors which only open when a train is stopped there, it is impossible to get a train photograph in any of the stations. Our return trip to the airport was to be problematic, due to very heavy usage of the network and over-crowded trains that evening. The solution was to cross to the other platform, board a train (set 5010) in the other direction (as far as Mall of the Emirates), where we finally managed to get on an airport bound train (set 5043). All very complicated, but it worked. A few stops after Dubai Mall saw the train empty rapidly. The system opened in 2009 and now has 56 miles of track. Officially the trains have a capacity of 643 passengers, on that evening there could have been more than that aboard the trains which we saw.

19th OCTOBER 2024

Just after disembarking from the shuttle bus, I managed to get a quick shot of this vehicle, an Ashok Leyland single decker. I had seen a few of these on our first visit to Dubai, some being longer than this and painted yellow.

The final leg of this marathon journey started with flight EK163 to Dublin taking off at 15.15. This was another Emirates plane, A6-EGX, a Boeing 777-300. After landing in Dublin at 20.20, we made our way through the obligatory passport control and to the baggage area. It seemed an eternity before my case finally appeared on the carousel. Despite that wait, we somehow managed to catch Bus Eireann LC23 on route 100X at 21.20 to Drogheda bus station, changing there to VWL311 on route D5, our last trip of the day. A short walk home and a chance to catch up on some much needed sleep - unpacking and laundry was a task for another day!. The end of an interesting adventure, during which I estimated we must have covered close to 30,000 miles. As noted above, the various modes of transport included classic and modern cars, buses, trams, steam, diesel and electric trains (involving three different gauges), steam boat, aircraft and of course our own feet. My pedometer showed a total of 90 miles.

Looking back on the whole experience, it was useful having the Revolut card balances available in both Dirhams and Australian dollars, thus avoiding exchange fees. We did discover that Revolut charge fees for weekend currency transfers, but not for ones done during the week...... Another useful item in the suitcase were vacuum bags to hold clothing, as once sealed they can have the air removed to reduce the volume, as long as there's a vacuum cleaner available. For public transport in Sydney, payment was acceptable with a visa card for those who didn't have the local Opal travel pass. But in Melbourne that facility doesn't exist, its Myki cards only. I think we only encountered one premises where it was cash only though. We saw life in three Australian cities, and also the much easier pace in various small towns. Then there was our car driving sessions, the Wolseley in the Sydney area and the MG3 from Adelaide along wide, straight almost empty roads to Jamestown. Wisely we followed other travellers advice not to drive in rural areas at night, which is when kangaroos, wallabies and wombats become active -- having a car immobilised by hitting one of them means waiting till daybreak for a recovery service to come out. It is also a plus having a local contact to organise local sim cards and travel passes before arrival. The advantage of driving on the left and speaking English is also helpful. If you can, please try and experience this country at least once.

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