Safely back in Melbourne, and why we hate V-Line

Jen and I made it back to our house in Melbourne late this afternoon, and boy were we glad to get here! I am now doubly glad that we changed our holiday plans and went to Sydney for Christmas, meaning that we only had to do the Canberra-Melbourne trip once instead of twice. Or, put another way, today I remembered why I hate buses so much.

We got on a bus in downtown Canberra about 8am this morning. Thanks so much to our Canberran friend Robin, who was nice enough to give us a drive to the bus depot, saving us another long public-transit ride. The bus was totally NOT COMFORTABLE. We were surprised to discover that the seats were numbered, like on a train, and we had assigned seats for the bus ride part of the trip. The seats were so narrow that Jen and I were squashed together - and that was with her pressed all the way to the window and me squeezed up against the arm rest in the aisle... which didn't move, I should point out. Although the seats appeared to recline, mine was stuck in the reclined position, which cramped my back to the point where I ended up using my polar fleece sweater as a lumbar support! So to put it mildly, the first four hours of the trip were not pleasant.

The bus took us from Canberra to Albury, a town on the NSW-Victoria border. There, we transferred to a train which took us the rest of the way to Melbourne. Here's where things got even yuckier. We wheeled our big suitcases and boogie boards up to the first car on the train where the luggage compartment was, only to be informed (politely, but firmly) that we couldn't store our luggage there because it had not been checked in 30 minutes prior to departure and therefore would not be covered by V-Line's insurance. Apparently we were supposed to arrange for our luggage to be checked at the start of our trip. What the...? How were we supposed to do that? When I originally purchased the tickets, I was not asked if I was going to be checking any luggage. At the bus depot in Canberra, there wasn't even a V-line counter, so nobody for us to talk to there about luggage. It was strictly a pickup point. When the bus dropped us at the train, there was only 15 minutes before the train was scheduled to leave, and it was all we could do to get onto the platform in time. GAH.

So with only a few minutes to spare, we hoofed it back down the train to our car, hoping to find some place to put our big suitcases. There are only these teeny luggage racks on each of the train cars, and ours was already full. With some rearranging we managed to get my suitcase squashed in, but there was no room for Jen's. The seats on these trains are arranged in groups of four, with a pair of seats facing forward and another pair facing backwards, leaving a gap inbetween sets of seats that are back-to-back. We tried putting Jen's suitcase in there, but again it didn't fit. In the end she had to drag it back down the train and put it in the car behind ours.

The two seats across from us were already occupied by two very nice old ladies, although the other seats around us were empty. The train completely filled up as we made our way towards Melbourne, though. These train seats were also pretty darn small, so again Jen and I ended up squished together. And since the seats across from us faced us, we couldn't even stretch our legs. On top of that, the air conditioning on the train was, um, intermittent, to say the least. So it was HOT. Basically the four hours on the train weren't any better than the four hours we spend on the bus. We were REALLY glad to get to Southern Cross station!

It felt really, really good to get home. We copped out and went to Godfather's Pizza for dinner, and vegged out on the couch. I am very, very glad we have a day off tomorrow to repack, rewash, and regenerate before heading to Perth!