Day 138a: Very strange XPT Daysitter journey from Sydney to very rainy Melbourne
Unfortunately, I write this report with eleven hours to go on a Qantas Dreamliner from Melbourne to Dallas Fort-Worth (and I know it might not even be published until I get to a particularly cold, rainy country that I don’t want to fly to, and no that’s not the US) It’s okay so far, but my primary source of entertainment is without doubt my beloved Macbook, on which I can type for hours. Sadly, it’s not much good to me at the moment. Find out why here.
Emotions were running high this week in Sydney as exchanges began to draw to a close for my friends and I. A few of my friends are there for complete the full three or four years of a whole degree - lucky - but most of us have been on exchanges, and we spent the week going to our favourite spots and taking an obscene amount of photos. And my final day in Sydney was Saturday 17th.
And not much of it was actually in Sydney either.
Well, as a word of explanation, the above was written on the flight (18th June) as you might have guessed, but it's a drag typing a full report on a phone so I gave up. As of last week, I have a very nice new black MacBook (Dec 2022-range), with far more capability than my former MacBook Jan 2020-range, and that's perfect to write on, so we continue with a report written on 16th July 
The reason for my final day not being in Sydney was I wanted to say farewell to the wonderful old V Sets, with their plushy plum leather seats, which will doubtlessly be replaced with the much-delayed D Sets when I next make it down under, and I went up to Tuggerah and back on my beloved Central Coast line, as I had done many times over the past few months, and then in the evening some of my friends and I went to Sydney Markets and to my favourite place, Circular Quay. It was very emotional but beautiful and memorable.
Anyway, the next morning it was a very early start - in fact, I never went to bed the night before - but my wonderful housemate Michaela was up with me to get my room completely cleared and to help me check out and lug my cases onto the bus. She came with me to the city, where I got a big fat Starbucks and we walked to the majestic Central Station for the last time ready to check in my bags for the 7:40am Melbourne XPT.
Then it got a bit strange and funny. The check-in woman recognised me from TikTok, specifically a TikTok where I had an enormous paddy about being told I couldn't use an accessible toilet because I "look fine" which attracted the attention of Australian national news, and she told me that because of that video and the attention it got, Sydney Trains had removed all locks from all accessible toilets on the network, and that it was no longer required to go and ask a member of staff to open them. GOOD. If the accessible toilet requires you to go and beg a member of staff to unlock it - who will determine if he thinks you deserve to use it or not - then it isn't really accessible, is it?
(Three XPTs - you can only just see the leftmost one - waiting to work to Casino, Melbourne and Dubbo (L-R) and an XPlorer. My train was the middle XPT, train third from right.)
It then got even weirder. We went to board my XPT (which was apparently fully booked in the Daysitters, so I would have neighbours, grrr...) - she was allowed onto the platform to wave me off of course, this isn't London Euston - and I boarded and went to my Daysitter... which was filled with two
very young children - I would guess ages 2 and 6 - sat in the other two seats, amid a load of toys which were strewn all over the place! Not to be crude, but it smelled rancid in the compartment too, a lot like a soiled nappy which I assumed was most likely exactly what it was. The little girl, who was the older one, said quietly "Oh yes, our mum told us someone might come in."
I, too shocked for words, went to my seat (I had the window one), wondering how on earth someone had put two of their kids in a daysitter on their own, and also how the hell I was going to bear twelve hours in a compartment with the blaring of nursery rhymes from a tablet. The little girl closed the door and curtains, and I was sat there thinking "This is really, really inappropriate and weird to be quite honest."
Well at that moment one of the ticket inspectors open the door and frowned at me, and said "Sorry, are you in the right seat?" I told her, frankly I was wondering that myself, and showed her my ticket. She agreed with me that this was really weird, and went to look desperately for parents of these unaccompanied very young children. She found their mother in the next daysitter. It turns out, the daysitters had only two seats in one and one seat in the other, so she'd booked herself in one and booked her two under 7s in the other, shoving a huge amount of toys and tablets in to keep them occupied on their own for twelve hours!
The stewardess was shocked and agreed with me that it wasn't right to put me, an adult stranger, in a room with someone's little kids, and so she gave the woman my seat in the creche - I mean daysitter - and put me in the daysitter at the furthest end of the corridor, next to the power car - which is normally kept reserved for staff. Well, that would mean I had a daysitter to myself for the full journey, when the rest of the daysitters were completely booked, so that was a fantastic result for me!
I locked the door, got out my fluffy blanket and travel pillow, took out my cans of Red Bull and bottle of water and stacked them on the convenient window ledge, and used all three seats as my own private sofa/bed. As we pulled out of Central station and I waved Michaela a very sad goodbye from the window, I settled down with a new book and the rest of my Starbucks, and it was just a far, far more classy way of leaving Sydney than via Domestic Departures, and perfect for me who hadn't slept and needed a bed!
Plenty of space as you can see…
Which I made the most of…
Never will I ever take a photo from that angle again if it's going to make my nose look so revoltingly big. Said a miserable goodbye to the Sydney Trains network that I'd become so familiar with (and yes, I have covered the entire network, I made sure to do that and the final stretch Olympic Park line was covered back in May) where the electrification ended at Macarthur, and goodbye to the Opal network at Goulburn, and then we were really in rural surroundings. So very beautiful though, and I was thoroughly enjoying the journey. What a scenic way to leave Sydney, I thought, and then popped down to the cafe for a cream tea, as I have done every time I've taken the XPT or XPlorer (excluding when I snuck on for a hop to Campbelltown, all the way back in February!) It was delightful of course, though as I had no sleep the night before I did partake in a few cheeky naps after.
Cootamundra is a beautiful place name, I also think - we stopped there, and the humorous-sounding Yass Junction. (Oh Yass) I'd finished my book by now, so I opened a new one (and a second can of Red Bull) We approached "Harden," which I misheard and sniggered about, thinking we were approaching a town called "Hard on"
(I know, very mature) And then came the notorious Wagga Wagga.
Now, I've always wanted a photo with the Wagga Wagga sign, so after checking with the train manager that there was enough time, I hopped off the XPT and onto the platform. What an incredible name.
It after re-boarding the train - and ugh, it's so exhausting just remembering and writing the journey from here on - that I opened my backpack to take out my Mac, with the intention of typing up the Palm Beach report, to find it wasn't there. I looked around the daysitter (thoroughly). Not there either. Panic ensued. Checked absolutely everywhere, including the original daysitter - which now had three adults as the family had since gone. Absolutely nowhere to be seen. The train manager and other staff checked the daysitters. Gone. The train manager took me into the rear power car and let me rip through the suitcases. Nada. Nowt. No phone service either.
A very anxious hour later, I got enough phone service to use Find My Mac and discovered it was still sat in my room in Sydney. Fuming at myself, I sent a message to my Sydney friends group chat (almost all of them, bar the ones that went home before me, lived in the same block as me) and asked them to beg reception to check in the room. The service then disappeared and didn't return until just before Melbourne, so I saw no answer. I opened up my book and tried to enjoy the rest of the journey, though it was difficult of course.
Albury was the last station in New South Wales (so close to Victoria that it's actually served more by V Line than it is by NSW Trainlink), and I sorrowfully and anxiously watched my favourite state become Victoria. From here on, the orange nameboards with instantly recognisable New Frank typeface that I'd become so accustomed to were no more, instead it was Public Transport Victoria's Purple (for V Line stations) or Blue (for Metro stations) clad with Helvetica Neue Extra Thin (former First Great Western vibes) for the remainder of the journey. That made me feel like I'd gone back in time, because of course Melbourne was pretty much where I started my journey back on February 1st. And you can read my trip reports (Day 3 and 4) from Melbourne back then, here:
https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/down-under-with-tt-onr-nrn.242499/#post-6060629
Just before I arrived into Melbourne Southern Cross, I had confirmation that my laptop was indeed still in Queen Mary Building, Camperdown, Newtown, Sydney, while I on the other hand was 850km away, and with no ability to fly back to get it without missing my flights home the next day. Michaela said she'd run it to Sydney Central and put it on the overnight Melbourne XPT for me to collect at Broadmeadow or Southern Cross the next day, but very, very, very unhelpfully and irritatingly, despite knowing my circumstances, NSW Trainlink refused to take it and called it "unattended cargo." Protocol, I guess, but had they just done it, I'd still have it now.
I was furious, and even more furious with having to drag my heavy awkward cases on their broken wheels to the IBIS STYLES, but I got there in the end, screamed very loudly into a pillow, and thought sensibly. No one had stolen it. All I'd have to do would be to pay to fly it to London, and suck it up on two very long flights without it. That's all. A bit of financial inconvenience, and a lot of boredom on the planes.
"This is your last night in Australia," I told myself very firmly indeed. "Enjoy it. Or ELSE."
It was only 7pm, so I cheered up, put on a coat as Melbourne was FREEZING compared to Sydney, and went out to enjoy myself in Australia for the last time of this trip.
