Brisbane long weekend

For those of you who follow my blog for the public transport content, the next few posts will be one of my travelogues… but of course you will also find some PT observations in here.

I quite like a winter warmer getaway, and this year an option presented itself: Brisbane for my aunt’s 80th birthday dinner.

Unfortunately not many from the family could go, but my sister and I were able to, so we booked flights and accommodation and made a weekend of it.

Luggage

As I rolled my suitcase to the station on Friday morning it occurred to me that I should consider getting a new one. It’s got wheels, so is pretty convenient, but it’s old.

The wheels are hard and loud on most surfaces. It causes a rumble as I walk with it along the street, almost as if it’s being dragged, not rolled. People ahead of me were turning around to see what the noise was.

When passing over a tactile path the rumble is replaced, so it becomes rumble rumble rumble badadadada rumble rumble.

The other reason for a new one is it’s too big for this type of short trip. It was literally only half full. It’s also towards the upper limit of carry-on luggage – my sister has something smaller.

We met on the train into the city and she pitched the benefits of carry-on. I’ve generally wanted to avoid the hassle of hauling a suitcase around the airport and squeezing it into the overhead lockers, but I can see the benefits.

Heading north

Off the train at Southern Cross, then the convoluted and poorly signposted route to the Skybus terminus. We’d pre-booked – they have a deal in June of $19.90 for pre-booked tickets, $35 return trip, rather than $24.60 one way for a walk-up fare. It doesn’t make it cheap, but it does make it less expensive.

Front seat, top deck of the Skybus? Why yes, thank you very much.

A pretty quick trip to the airport, then after checking in my bag we settled in to wait in the lounge – I’d splashed out on a cheapish Business class ticket for me, though I was feeling a bit guilty that my sister would be back in Economy… though not guilty enough to change it.

While waiting we had a good view of the gates. And we had some entertainment. A baggage truck with several trailers rolled along the runway outside. Then a bag fell off the back.

I wondered: would the driver notice? A few seconds later, he did, and started to turn around to get it… but he took the U-turn too fast, and another twenty or so bags fell off.

The driver looked back, and you could see the despair. Surprisingly it took him and some helpers another 30 minutes or so to get the bags all back onto the trailers.

If you’ve ever wondered why your plane was delayed, this might be it. Or perhaps a couple of dozen people got to their destinations without their luggage.

I can be a very slightly nervous flyer. This spectacle at least helped me relax. It also left me wondering: why don’t baggage carts have side rails?

The flight itself was uneventful, apart from a few metres away someone coughing most of the way to Brisbane. The person sitting next to her, who seemed to be her travel companion, appeared at one stage to be leaning away and covering his mouth and nose with his jacket collar. Why do people not mask up in these situations?

Anyway, I spent most of the flight doing something I should do more of: reading a novel.

BNE ground transport

While we’d pre-booked Skybus at the Melbourne end, we hadn’t done so for Airtrain at the Brisbane end. The normal fare (to/from city stations) is $22.30, but you can get 15% off (eg $18.96) by booking online.

So why not pre-book? Because we were scheduled to land at 13:35, during a period when Airtrain only runs every half hour.

The Airtrain ads say “Trains every 15 mins”, but there’s also an asterisk that’s doing some heavy lifting. They’re half that frequency for much of the day, and all day on weekends.

Pre-booking would lock us in to waiting, even if we just missed a train.

Sure enough, waiting for my luggage took a bit longer than expected. Hmm, carry-on only is looking better and better. But there was an unexpected upside to this – we ran into my old school friend Conrad, also waiting for luggage, also in Brisbane for the weekend. I probably hadn’t seen him in person in a couple of decades.

But we just missed the 14:04 train, so we decided to get an Uber to our accommodation in South Brisbane. The cost was $47, only slightly higher than two train fares, and we had arrived at the apartment about the same time the next train departed the airport.

We had a short rest in the apartment, and I immediately changed into shorts – every day of the trip was low 20s and fine, though the evenings were cooler. Then we went for a walk down to West End, a very pleasant area nearby full of shops and restaurants. It was a chance to stretch the legs and buy some groceries.

The birthday dinner that evening was at a Thai restaurant in nearby Highgate Hill, also within walking distance, where we were plied with Thai food and birthday cake and drinks, and got to chat with relatives, and to wish the birthday girl a happy 80th birthday.

A terrific start to the weekend.