It’s our annual short break time again. Going to Warrnambool today with the kids for a few days. Lake Pertobe adventure playground definitely on the list of things to do, as is the Flagstaff Hill maritime museum.
Going down by train. The fare’s amazingly cheap, and V/Line’s online booking looked good, but I had to ring them to get the reservation number, and picking up the ticket from my local station was wholly unimpressive — apparently some suburban stations don’t have “V/Net” (V/Line computer) access, and the bloke had to ring up and write out the ticket by hand. No matter.
Hope to hire a car while there, and maybe look at the 12 Apostles or perhaps try the Portland “cable” tram*. But jeez they don’t make it easy. According to Yellow Pages and Google, Budget, Thrifty and Hertz all have branches there, but it turns out the first two (which were quite conveniently located) have deserted the ‘Bool, leaving only Hertz, which is a long hike from the hotel. Grumble. Why the hell can’t they understand that people wanting to hire cars probably didn’t arrive by car?
Oh well, I’m sure we’ll find enough to do. Hopefully the weather is okay.
Be good while I’m gone.
*This is not an entry for the Blog of Unnecessary Quotation Marks — it’s really powered by diesel.
8 replies on “Going to the ‘Bool”
Have a great time, get some pics of the cable trams and the few apostles that are left standing!
Warrnambool was a good place, I went there earlier in the year for the Easter long weekend. The VLine train service is fantastic in my view, cheap and clean. They even have staff at every station and a conductor on board, and they were great to talk to.
Daniel you have to try surfing in Warrnambool (if you are into surfing), it is usually a good swell out there. About half an hour away Port Fairy is a really lovely town with the annual jazz festival and best fish and chips.
Have fun!!
Take care. Avoid Garnier.
I’ve never been to Warnambool, but I’m more interested in spending time travelling overseas…particularly in Japan and Europe.
Hertz was the best and cheapest we found in Sydney to hire a car from. Also in Tasmania. A local holiday for local people. Sounds nice and I am envious. Re train tickets, it should work faster and more easily, but at least it worked.
PlatiNumEuro: Not into surfing, but had a good time. Stand by for copious details.
OK Reuben I give up, what does Garnier have to do with anything? Are you just using some kind of random word generator?
(Your travel preferences also have little to do with this post, but I’ll let that go this time.)
Forgive me, Daniel. I was commiting tomfoolery. But my point about traveling still stands: Vline < airline overseas.
Go the ‘bool! I’m so looking forward to the post giving minute detail of your experiences!
(Hope I didn’t give you any bad advice…)
Oh, and WRT rental cars…
It’s not just Warrnambool! I observed much the same in Qld. The car hire companies seem to think that paying less rent on a site that is not central (ie. 10 kms out of town!) is a good idea… Nevermind that tourists can’t find them or have to resort to paying a cab to take them to the car hire place… Maybe taxi and car hire companies are in partnership to profit with this! The most ridiculous situation in Qld was at Hervey Bay – where we were catching a ferry to Fraser Island after driving up from Noosa – the car hire places near the marina were closed on a Sunday, so we had to drive out of our way to drop the car at the airport and then catch a cab to the marina, only to arrive with a minute to spare because of the inconvenience! Stoopid car hire companies!