Some More Randomness 8

Sadly, in the two months it's been since I last updated, I've only done five routes - 509, 533, 832, 892, 894.

I'm going bunzelling tomorrow, so hopefully I can add at least five more.

That is all.

Some More Randomness 5

I was intending to update this thing that long ago, but meh. I've been busy.

I've done at least a bit of gunzelling so far in 2008. I've finished 517, 582, 779, 789/790/791, and I've also done route 782 between Hastings and Flinders, so I never need to head out there again. ;) I've taken a few hundred photos at a dozen locations already, so I'm doing pretty good with that so far. Of course, more will come when I get a day out of my temporarily-busy life...heheh.

Anyway, the next update should be in a week or so if I'm lucky.

Some More Randomness 3

It's amazing - I actually went gunzelling yesterday...heheh.

I may have only done routes 467, 695D, 800 and 857, and 834/835 a couple of weeks earlier, but that's a pretty good achievement for me these days.

Either way, there's no way in hell that I'll have every route done before the end of the year, seeing as there's like...13 days left.

I'm going to Bairnsdale on NYE - can't wait. But before that, there'll probably be a bit of station hopping on the Seymour line.

Um, yeah...if I'm not lazy that is...

Some More Randomness

It's been another seven weeks since I last updated. Unfortunately, updates might be few and far between for a while, as my computer decided to shit itself a few weeks ago.

Anyway, I haven't gunzelled all that much in October. It sucks having no cash at my disposal.

That said, though, I have done a few routes - 557, 566, 575, 774, 775, 956, 969.

I only have three Nightrider routes and one extension to do - Dandenong, Eltham, Lilydale and Melton. As well, only 84 regular routes and five Telebus routes left to do, plus that whole pile of route extensions and diversions which I'm not really in a hurry to do.

On Tuesday, I'll probably do route 695 to Dandenong, as well as a few other routes which I'll decide on later (though routes 813, 834/835, 836 and 857 are likely to appear).

Maybe I'll update again on Tuesday night...

Randomness 25

Apologies for the lack of seven weeks of updates.

In that period, I've done routes 219, 438, 439, 441, 530, 531, 538, 542, 552, 555, 572, 577, 699, 844 and 895 (off-peak), and a few others which I'll add later if I remember them. I've also done irregular deviations/extensions of routes 409 to Sunshine Park, 697 to Fountain Gate and 848 via Coolavin Rd.

I only have 89 regular routes left to do, give or take a few. In addition to that, I also have six Nightrider routes and five Telebus routes to do.

That's also in addition to dozens of extensions, variations, deviations, etc. - a couple of major ones being route 279 to Templestowe and route 695 to Dandenong.

Still, progress is good so far......

Randomness 24

I went gunzelling last night. I seem to have a recent desire to randomly gunzel Nightrider routes. Having already done the Belgrave (but not Rowville), Craigieburn, Croydon (but not Lilydale), Rosebud and St Albans routes, I decided to do a couple more.

Because I got dropped off in Windsor at 8:30pm and got a 64 tram to Swanston St, I decided to do a bit of gunzelling in the city to fill in time. At around 10:30pm, I got on a train to Essendon, from where I boarded route 483 to Sunbury, which only runs at night on Fridays and Saturdays. Whether it needs to run at night on weekends is a different story - there were no other pax onboard.

At Sunbury, I waited the 20 minutes until midnight for the Nightrider back into the city, which is a 77 minute trip via St Albans. I then got the Werribee Nightrider outbound and back in, filling in another couple of hours. By this point it was 3:20am.

From there, I was planning to do the Eltham and Dandenong routes (I would've arrived at Dandenong at 6:30am). I was tired and felt a bit nauseous after going over the West Gate twice, so I boarded the Nightrider back to St Albans. I alighted at Main Rd/Station Rd, only a couple of km from my house, but I decided to be lazy and get picked up so I ended up arriving home at 4:30am instead of 5am.

So I've now done half of all Nightrider routes. I might do some more next weekend, too. I'm thinking of getting the 11:27pm trip in from Croydon via Belgrave and Rowville, then 1:30am to Epping and back, 3:30am to Eltham and back, and 5:30am to Dandenong next Saturday night. If I do all of them, I would've done all routes except Croydon to Lilydale and Deer Park to Melton, which I can do on a separate trip.

Let's see what happens though. ;)

Randomness 22

I have actually been somewhere this week. It's about damn time. While it's not much of an achievement, I did routes 799, 842, 845 and 849 yesterday.

Meanwhile, I'm moving on with other planning to do all remaining Melbourne bus routes by the end of 2007. Whether or not I can actually do it I don't know, but hopefully I'll get at least close to doing them all.

Randomness 20

Apologies (again) for the lack of updates, but I've done fuck all gunzelling in the last month apart from a couple of bus routes.

However:

• I have completed planning for five minor trips for bunzelling, and three days of station hopping.
• Actually doing said bunzelling would add about 35 bus routes to my list, in the areas of:
  • Frankston
  • Werribee
  • Ringwood, Croydon, Lilydale, Belgrave
  • Dandenong, Berwick, Cranbourne
  • Epping, Greensborough.
• Actually doing said station hopping would add approximately 25 stations to my list, being all stations from:
  • Donnybrook to Seymour
  • Nar Nar Goon to Trafalgar
  • Macedon to Castlemaine.
• I've also completed planning for two major station hopping/bunzelling trips, which will be dependent on me having sufficient cash available:
  • One to Bendigo, doing all three stations plus at least 75% of bus routes and arriving back at Sydenham at 22:09.
  • One to the Latrobe Valley, doing all three train stations and all Valley Transit bus routes except Traralgon to Churchill.
• In addition to that, I've completed planning for an overnight trip involving a few Nightrider routes, which will probably be done in conjunction with the Craigieburn electrification opening, so I can also gunzel the first spark.

Exciting times are ahead, perhaps. And it's going to cost a fair bit, and take up a lot of my time. But I have plenty of it anyway, since I finished uni for this semester on Friday.

Randomness 10

I did even more bus gunzelling yesterday. It involved getting:

• 425 to St Albans
• train to Southern Cross
• train to Cranbourne
• 791 to Karingal Hub
• 769 to Frankston
• train to Parliament
• train to Greensborough
• 569 to Epping
• train to Flinders Street
• train to St Albans

I must say I'm pleased with the level of patronage the 425 is getting on Sunday, even though its first ever Sunday service was yesterday. The trip I was on in the morning had a total of 11 passengers on it when it arrived at St Albans.

Otherwise it was a fairly uneventful day.

But I'm still a loser. :)

Back In Melbourne

Whoo, I haven't updated this in how long now? Three weeks, haha.

When I last updated it I was in Adelaide (Seems like so long ago now, even though it was only three weeks ago). I ended up getting the V/Line Daylink coach+train back to Melbourne (St Albans to be precise, since Bendigo trains stop there). Some random observations:

- Adelaide has hardly changed since I was last there in April 2005.
- 8:25am is too early for me to get a coach from Adelaide city (I had to leave Findon (where I was staying, at my grandma's house) at 7:15am).
- V/Line coaches take too long and stop too often.
- Bendigo station is big(-ish).
- N+N set from Bendigo to St Albans = fun.

Well, I'm now back at uni. Fun, fun. Doing a BA, majoring in professional writing and Japanese. Yep, very fun actually.

Need to do more gunzelling soon. I went to Pakenham and Fountain Gate, then caught the 695 to Belgrave, on Saturday. I went to uni on Labour Day (and had to walk to Keilor Plains in the morning, 45 min, and home from St Albans after uni, 50 min). I still haven't been to Sandown Park, Yarraman, Tottenham, West Footscray, Rockbank and Leawarra-Crib Point for some reason.

Hmm, I don't know what else to write now.

Monthly Plan 1 Update

I only wrote my monthly plan yesterday, and I've already deviated from it. Which isn't surprising. I thought it would be better to get every station on the Lilydale and Belgrave lines over and done with, which is made possible by the outer extremities of these two lines having a higher service frequency on weekends than weekdays.

After getting a direct service from Flinders Street to Belgrave just after 9am and getting to Belgrave in search of a route 695 timetable which could not be found, I decided to roam the area. In order of stops, I went from Belgrave to Upwey to Tecoma to Heathmont to Ferntree Gully to Boronia to Croydon (737 bus) to Ringwood East (367 bus). I have now been to every station on the Lilydale and Belgrave lines past Blackburn, which has reduced my non-visited stations count from 93 to 88.

I will be going to the rest (Laburnum, Mont Albert, Chatham, Canterbury, East Camberwell) some time this week probably, along with Burwood, Hartwell, Willison, Heyington and Darling, which will complete the whole Burnley group. Also coming this week will be Newmarket, Middle Brighton and Hampton, which will complete all host stations as well as the Sandringham line.

Considering the comparitively low number of buses (compared to trains, anyway) I use (mainly due to their low service level), riding parts of two routes is an achievement for me. The lack of timetable information at major stops is another main reason. For example, one of the busiest stops on my own route 422, outside Kings Park Secondary College, does not have a timetable. Even though it is serviced by three routes and is a timing point. A timetable here would be useful definitely, particularly on weekends when the three routes (422, 424 and 425) combined give the stop departure times of 07, 32 and 47 past the hour (an overall frequency of 25-15-20 minutes), and not all services to St Albans stop on the same side of the road.

Maybe I need to stop complaining and get a life. But that probably won't happen in a hurry.