Some More Randomness 4

I can't believe I actually went station hopping on the Seymour line last Friday when I said I was going to.

I've now been to every station between Southern Cross and Seymour, except for Donnybrook...so I'm making reasonable progress with my go-to-every-station-in-Victoria goal.

Now, hopefully this won't be my last update for the year. Hopefully I get up early enough to go do at least a few more bus routes tomorrow. But I dunno...I'm lazy.

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...

Randomness 21

Interestingly enough, instead of actually gunzelling in the last week, I've been completing more planning to go gunzelling.

I've now completed planning for another Ballarat trip to go bunzelling, which will mean I'd have done all regular Ballarat routes.

The plan:

0557 422 - St Albans 0608
0614 Train - Sunshine 0622
0639 Train - Ballarat 0803
0808 City Loop - Lt Bridge St (via University of Ballarat) 0850
0855 15 - Sturt/Vale - Curtis St 0929
0935 8 - Eureka - Lt Bridge St 0954
1000 12 - Sebastopol - Curtis St 1044
1100 7 - Brown Hill - Lt Bridge St - 1124
1130 1 - Wendouree West - Wendouree Village 1153
1200 17 - Miners Rest - Wendouree Village 1225
1230 6 - Webbcona Loop - Wendouree Village 1244
1255 2 - Curtis St 1324
(Lunch)
1420 14 - Delacombe - Peel St 1454
1455 5 - Black Hill - Lt Bridge St 1520
1550 13 - Delacombe - Peel St 1624
Walk to Lt Bridge St, approx 10 min
1645 3 - North Creswick 1713
1715 3 - Doveton/Mair Sts 1738
Walk to Ballarat Station, approx 10 min
1757 Train - Sunshine 1917

Now I just need to decide when to do it. :)

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 17

So, I did some more station hopping today.

Random observations:

• Clarkefield station is dead. Poor location, in the middle of nowhere. Needs more people. Until then needs less trains, possibly peak only.
• Riddells Creek station is equally dead a lot of the time, but isn't completely useless. Needs more trains.
• Gisborne station is busyish. Good location. Needs more people and more trains. Needs sparkification, in fact.

That is all.

Randomness 15

What have I been doing for the past month? Pretty much nothing, because I'm a boring gunzel.

I need more money...I want to go to Bendigo. :(

Randomness 9

I rode the new route 418 from St Albans to Caroline Springs this morning, then walked about a km and got route 456 to Melton (Woodgrove Shopping Centre). From there I got route 457 to Melton to finish the part of the route that I hadn't yet done, then after having a quick lunch and racing back to the Palmerston St interchange, I got route 459 to Melton station.

And for the first time today, I rode a V/Locity at full speed. It was almost orgasmic, somehow.

(Do I sense a hint of train-wankerism here?)

Randomness 7

I still haven't done my trip to Seymour, but I've decided I'm going to do it some time in September - so I can take advantage of all of the extra services that will be running on weekdays, and actually go to every station in a single day. I can also do it on the Bendigo line, so that will be coming up eventually too.

Hmm, for some reason I've been doing a LOT of bus gunzelling recently. At a quick estimate, if I keep it up at the current rate, I'll be able to have every route in Melbourne done by the end of 2007.

How sad I am...

Randomness 5

I went to Rockbank yesterday, finally. The station itself sucks. It's useless, and I wouldn't want to wait there for more than the half hour I did. I have now been to all stations except Flemington Racecourse, and all stations between Leawarra and Morradoo.

Here goes a random partly-sensical rant about activity centres around me, mixed with some more gunzelling.

I also went to Sunshine yesterday for no real reason. Well, I did have a reason sort of. I decided to randomly do a photographic tour, which involved taking the longest possible route between Sunshine and Albion on foot. I realised that Sunshine has tremendous amounts of open and underutilised, and therefore developable, space.

Due to a lack of low-density housing surrounding the core activity centre, Sunshine could easily accommodate taller (ten to twelve storey) buildings without much of a problem. But I already knew that anyway. It just seems more surreal to actually look at the whole centre specifically in terms of development space.

So, I eventually got to Albion station, opposite which there is a massive (unused?) flour mill, which would look completely awesome if it was converted into apartments. I was thinking of how a possible redevelopment of that one building would fit in with Melbourne 2030, and I came to the conclusion that it's a perfect example, and is also in a perfect location:

• It preserves the early-20th century heritage-listed building
• It's right next to a train station and a few bus routes
• Nearby residents couldn't complain about the height of the building, because it's been there the whole time (this is actually an important point in my opinion, considering how anti-development people in Brimbank, unlike me, tend to be)

So anyway, I got on a train back to Sunshine, and decided to randomly ride route 454 from end to end and return (which I did without getting off the bus - that's how tragic I am). I took some more photos of Sunshine, this time on the western side of the train line, before getting on a train to Sydenham.

Sydenham (in particular around Watergardens) isn't much of a principal activity centre at the moment, despite being a Transit City. Something worth noting, though, is the level of development that is now under construction and/or approved. Sydenham is going through a construction boom (of sorts) right now, including a new "Learning Centre" and a large shopping centre expansion. It is eventually going to have a town square linking the shopping centre to the train station. So, after taking a couple of photos, I got the 421 to Centro Keilor.

Centro Keilor is just an everyday supermarket-based shopping centre. No real description is required for that reason. I transferred to route 418, to St Albans.

St Albans is a major activity centre. It's very busy, and has significant numbers of people arriving by public transport (although also significant amounts of car traffic). I wasn't there for very long. Just long enough, in fact, to walk from the Alfrieda St bus terminus to the train station, to buy a Sunday Saver, and then get on the 423 a few minutes later.

Route 423 goes through Cairnlea, one of Vicurban's flagship "sustainable" suburbs. The only problem is, Cairnlea only has a single bus route which runs every 40 minutes on weekdays, every hour on Saturdays, and not at all during evenings or on Sundays. True sustainability (I assume) would include reducing reliance on cars, which certainly hasn't happened. But enough about that.

I got to Brimbank Central, which is currently the largest shopping centre in Brimbank (but is going to be overtaken by Watergardens very soon). It is nominated as a major activity centre, and will eventually have the Green Orbital Smartbus running through it. I had lunch there, while thinking about how PT to it should be improved. It would involve running at least routes 423 and 451 on Sundays.

But, enough compulsive ranting for now. Main points for today:

• Sunshine should get lots of high rise buildings. It's in a perfect location
• West Sunshine (particularly around Glengala Rd) is a hole, and should disappear from the face of the earth
• Shopping centres in Brimbank are too small, and should be massively expanded
• I think I'm a bus gunzel......

Gunzel Update

Okay, so I ended up going to Ballarat. I just about stuck to my plan, but I ended up getting an earlier train to Melton, then back to Bacchus Marsh, then to Sunshine, then went home.

I still need to get around to going to Rockbank though. Maybe I can do it on Monday before uni, at least I'd only have a 30 minute wait for the train back.

I might also change my blog layout some time soon.

Hmm, I'm going to Sunbury tomorrow. Yeah.

Randomness 3

So, I ended up just about sticking to my plan, right up to North Geelong anyway. After getting off the train at North Geelong, my trip went something like this:

1543 North Geelong - Little River 1603
1640 Little River - Footscray 1712
then as normal.

So, I've now been to every station between Melbourne and Geelong. Woot.

I'm going to Ballarat on Thursday. My full plan is as follows:

0557 Route 422 - St Albans 0608
0614 St Albans - Sunshine 0622
0639 Sunshine - Ballarat 0816
0914 Ballarat - Ballan 0936
1042 Ballan - Ballarat 1111
1130 Route 1 (Lt. Bridge St) - Wendouree Village 1149
1232 Route 16 - Ballarat City 1249
1520 Ballarat - Deer Park 1629
1642 Route 451 - Brimbank Central 1700
1726 Route 424 - Arr home 1745

Randomness 2

Latest station update. I haven't been to:

Rockbank
Flemington Racecourse
Leawarra
Baxter
Somerville
Tyabb
Hastings
Bittern
Morradoo

Woot, only nine stations to go till they're all done (but unfortunately Flemington Racecourse might have to wait a while, perhaps Melbourne Cup Day). I might go to Rockbank tomorrow, since I'll be out anyway.

I'm probably going to go to Geelong/Marshall on Thursday; purely a station-hopping trip. Since I've basically finished the suburban area, I think it's just about time to start going further out. I'm planning to go to all stations between Lara and Marshall, and perhaps wander around Geelong CBD for a while taking photos.

So, full plan for Thursday:

0605 Leave home
0617 Route 424 - St Albans 0628
0634 St Albans - Flagstaff 0659
0706 Flagstaff (pl. 1) - Southern Cross 0708
0747 Southern Cross - South Geelong 0856
0925 South Geelong - Geelong 0928
0947 Geelong - Marshall 0955
1005 Route 15 - Geelong City 1044
1130 Geelong - Corio 1139
1151 Corio - North Shore 1154
1228 Route 10 (Melb Rd) - Geelong City 1244
1453 Geelong - Lara 1506
1526 Lara - North Geelong 1538
1620 North Geelong - Footscray 1712
1728 Footscray - St Albans 1745
1750 Route 424 - Arr home 1810

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.

Provincial Victoria 1

So, I never ended up getting to Adelaide. So instead, I went on a bit of a roadtrip around Victoria on Tuesday (No, I wasn't driving!).

I ended up getting to Kyneton, Bendigo (where I picked up a Bendigo Bus timetable for 20 cents, which I paid with a $50 note. Ouch), St Arnaud, Avoca, Maryborough, Castlemaine and Daylesford. Yes, the whole point of the trip was to take photos of train stations.

Highlights of the trip included driving on the Calder Freeway, which I'd been on before but not in daylight, Maryborough station, and driving from Castlemaine to Daylesford to Woodend in pouring (POURING!) rain and being able to see barely twenty metres ahead. Many, many cars were stopped on the Midland Highway about half-way to Daylesford as it really started to fall.

Erm, yeah. It was fun, really.