Planes, trains and automobiles

Six adults do not fit in one car. At least not comfortably. Or legally. And there were six of us in Sydney.

That meant there were two options for getting around: hire another car, or use public transport. Aaron and I opted for the latter. For $60 each, the MyMulti3 pass allowed us unlimited travel on trains, buses, ferries and trams all over the city. We bought two at the airport, and headed straight  for town.

Almost.

There’s just one little problem with catching a train from Kingsford Smith Airport.

The gate fee.

I tried very hard not to tell Aaron about the gate fee, and succeeded right up until the girl at the counter handed us two tickets each and explained that one was just to go through the gate to the platform. Being a naturally curious soul, Aaron asked how much the gate pass cost. And being a naturally honest soul, I told him. $12. Each.

And then wished I was a naturally dishonest soul, who had the sense to say $2. For both of us.

For days, any mention of Sydney Airport led to a vitriolic diatribe that would put even the best talkback radio caller to shame. In fact, it can still set him off a little bit now (and I might even get a re-run when he reads this post!). Luckily, we had already paid for the tickets and I was the only person around to hear.

And that was our worst experience with transport in Sydney.

We caught trains from M&M‘s house in the suburbs into town, and buses through the northern suburbs to Palm Beach.

Ferries took us from Circular Quay to Manly, and up the river to Parramatta.

There was a short journey via tram from Central Station to Paddy’s Markets in Chinatown, followed by an even shorter trip on the monorail (which wasn’t included in the transport pass, but by that stage we were on a public transport roll!).

We walked through Hyde Park and out to the Cross (then got a taxi back, courtesy of my parents whose idea it was to walk out there in the first place!), and rode the Skyway in Katoomba (also not included in the transport pass, although we could have caught the train out there without paying anything extra).

In six days we travelled just about every way possible on the Sydney public transport network, and definitely got our money’s worth (if you think of the gate pass as an extension of the weekly ticket, and not a $12 fee to go through a turnstile, of course).