Sunday! And so we get to the main excuse reason for the trip to Sydney on this specific weekend: the Doctor Who Festival. I’ve been to Comic-Con in Melbourne twice, but this was a different beast: 98% dedicated to Doctor Who, with little bit of Sherlock (which has many of the same producers/writers/crew members/fans!) getting ... [More]
(Back-dated. Posted 24/11/2015.) Booking hotels When I book hotels, I treat location as the highest priority. I’m aiming to make it easy to get around the city we’re going to without a car. For this trip, I was aiming for easy access to: Hordern Pavilion, Sydney CBD, and the airport. Anything else was a bonus. ... [More]
A short trip coming up soon. Two nights away. Up on a Saturday at lunchtime, back on Monday evening. Options for getting to Melbourne airport and back, for the three of us: Train plus Skybus. About 70 minutes each way. Train fares each way $3.76 + 2 x $1.88. Skybus fares each way 3 x ... [More]
Almost all my photos from August 2005 seem to be from a three day Canberra trip (actually the only time I’ve been to Canberra). I remember it being cold but fun. And many of the photos are from around the Parliament Houses (old and new). Old Parliament House: New Parliament House. I think this was ... [More]
Backdated. Posted 17/11/2014. Day 4 — Sunday Not much to report. Breakfast at Darlinghurst’s Jekyll & Hyde — which was a bit meh. M’s order came with unwanted eggs, which I adopted. Afterwards I realised it was one of the breakfast places I’d ruled out because some of its Urbanspoon reviews didn’t sound that great ... [More]
Backdated. Posted on 16/11/2014. Saturday! The weather was warming up — have I mentioned how I’d jetted in on Thursday, a day after a huge storm passed through the city? Good timing (well, luck) is essential to any holiday, even a short one. After breakfasting at The Bunker in Darlinghurst, we caught the train across ... [More]
Posted 12/11/2014. Backdated to 7/11/2014. On the morning of day two in Sydney, after a sleep-in, we breakfasted. I’d looked at UrbanSpoon and concluded that every venue reviewed has its share of whingers — it’s a matter of identifying who is complaining about Real Stuff and who is complaining about trivia or a freak bad ... [More]
I couldn’t help but hum Paul Kelly’s “Darling It Hurts” almost constantly while walking around Darlinghurst on our short break in Sydney. Likewise “From St Kilda To Kings Cross” came to mind when in the Cross, and Australian Crawl’s “Restless” when catching sight of the Manly Ferry and Circular Quay. In the middle of Darlinghurst, ... [More]
Posted 10/11/2014. Backdated to 6/11/2014. On Thursday I flew up to Sydney for a few days. After umming and ahhing about whether I should take a small backpack or a wheely-case (I opted for the latter), I caught the train into the city and Skybus to the Airport — pretty quick and easy, thanks to ... [More]
On the road to Rutherglen a few weeks ago, we came across this: the old railway. Some photos below. Apparently it opened in 1879, with passenger trains running until 1962, and freight trains until 1995. These days the nearest operating railway is at Springhurst a few kilometres away, on the main line to Albury and ... [More]
On the way up to Rutherglen for the wedding, we detoured past Nagambie on family business and to stop for lunch. Nagambie’s bypass opened earlier this year. Traffic between Melbourne and Shepparton therefore no longer goes via the town, and it’s obvious that they’ve been trying to work out how to ensure some people still ... [More]
15 years ago I got back from my first trip to Europe. Here, finally, are the video highlights. Daniel’s 1998 Europe trip highlights from Daniel Bowen on Vimeo. Includes England (south-east, London, and York), Scotland (Edinburgh, Inverness, Plockton), Brussels, Bruges, Amsterdam. Worth noting… The blog posts written at the time are available here: Europe 1998. ... [More]
We went to Walhalla for a night to camp on Sunday (it’s been about a year since last time). Apart from a little rain on the way up, nice weather — though a little hot when the sun got going. The rain didn’t affect the camp site when we were there, but had other consequences. ... [More]
The Federal government’s High Speed Rail study assumes a route from Melbourne via Canberra to Sydney of between 823 and 842 km (mostly following existing highways), with trains reaching up to 350 km/h, and a three hour trip time from Melbourne to Sydney. Some people who argue against the idea like to claim there is ... [More]
Some people will tell you that rail lines down freeways are a great idea, because “the train overtaking cars is a great advertisement for public transport.” Perth has done this, primarily because it’s been the easiest way of extending the train network. So the Clarkson/Joondalup and Mandurah lines both run down the middle of freeways. ... [More]
All good things come to an end, and so it was with our Perth trip. We had a sleep-in, then packed up our stuff into the car and headed out. The flight wasn’t until lunchtime, but we had one more place to go before heading home: the boys have a strong interest in retro video ... [More]