I didn’t think that getting from Newcastle to Sydney would prove to be the most difficult leg of our trip to New Zealand, but so it was. We set out from Newcastle at 7pm February 23 and didn’t arrive in Sydney until 3:15am the next day. How does that happen? Through a perfect syzygy of bad luck, bad timing, and bad schedule reading.
There were three trains that we could catch (7, 7:30, 8:30) that would get us to Sydney Central Station, at a somewhat reasonable hour. (We had booked a hostel for the night so that we could catch a 7am flight.) We missed the first train because S misread the schedule (a minor mistake), then we got on the wrong train, because I messed up (a big mistake). I quickly realized my error and we got off, but it was at some stop in the middle of nowhere (Tarro, Au., pop. 1,558), and the next train back to where we started didn’t come until 9:15 (it was currently about 7:50), which meant, not only were we missing the 8:30 train to Sydney, we were missing the next train to Sydney at 9:30 as well. This was unacceptable as the following train didn’t come until 2:30am, which would put us at the airport a little after 6am (if we were lucky), much too late for our international flight.
So, we called a cab to pick us up at Tarro to take us back to the Hamilton train station (in Newcastle) to catch the 9:30 train to Sydney. Since hailing a cab from a deserted train station in Tarro, Australia at 8pm on a Wednesday, is not the most expedient process in the world (how I missed living in the heart of DC at that moment), we were quite worried that we wouldn’t make it. But lo and behold, the taxi came before too long and we were back at Hamilton station around 9:15.
Another thing I should mention is that this whole time we were accompanied by a bag lady. When we were first setting out she asked us if we were going to Sydney and I said yes, so she followed us, which obviously was a mistake. When I realized I had led her astray, I felt badly about it, so I told her to get off at Tarro, and then we took her back to Hamilton in the cab with us. She gave us some trinkets and a book of Jane Austen excerpts as a thank you, which was a nice enough gesture, but we ultimate threw these items away because we didn’t have room (nor the desire to make room) in our luggage for them. We repeatedly tried to not take them, but she insisted. Sadly, you could tell that this poor woman was used to lifetime of people shitting on her, because all we did was not completely diss her (seriously, how big of a dick would I have to be to leave her on a train going nowhere near her destination, or at an empty train station in the middle of god knows where), and she treated us like we were great philanthropists.
So, we make it back to Hamilton Station and catch the 9:30 train to Sydney, end of story, right? Nope. As the astute reader might realize, this would put us in Sydney a little after midnight, not at 3:15am like I previously stated. It turned out that all remaining trains to Sydney were canceled until dawn – track maintenance. We would have to take a bus, a bus that didn’t leave for another two hours, and not a bus to Sydney, a bus to Wyong. From Wyong we could take the train, but not to Sydney, to Hornsby. From Hornsby we could finally take the bus to Sydney, but not to Central Station, to Times Square about a 20 minute walk to Central.
Ironically, by the time we finally get to Central Station (around 3:45) we are too early to catch the airport connector (first one is at 4:45). Exhausted and not particularly keen on spending an hour waiting at Central among the drug-addled miscreants who populate the station during the dead of the night, we decided to cab it to the airport. We arrive before security opens.
Our total trip: walk to Civic Station, take wrong train to Tarro Station, take cab to Hamilton Station, take bus to Wyong Station, take train to Hornsby Station, take bus to Times Square, walk to Central Station, take cab to airport.
Total time: 8 hours 15 minutes.
Total money spent: $185 AUD ($90 for a hostel we didn’t use, $15 for train tickets, $35 for a cab ride we didn’t need, $45 for cab ride to the airport).
Total percentage of me that was pissed off: 10%.
Total percentage of me that thought the whole thing was ridiculously funny: 20%.
Total percentage of me that just wanted to eff-ing sleep: 70%.
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