DISCLAIMER: Today's topic will contain complaints, mathematical equations and lines stolen shamelessly from Blackadder. Thank you for your time.
So, who here likes walking? ...Aww come on, you know you love it.
Personally, I enjoy a good walk every now and then. It keeps the mind sharp, the lungs healthy and the buttocks firm. Gotta watch those buttocks.
I'll often sacrifice the chance to drive because I'd prefer to walk somewhere (the fact that I can't drive is irrelevant), so I can nod a friendly hello to the passers-by and pick up each and every lucky penny I come across. They're particularly lucky in Australia, seeing how pennies went out of circulation a long time ago, y'know.
Anyway, the point of today's lovely little BLOG is to express my enthusiasm for walking long distances. Though many who read this will no doubt scoff at my plight, I feel that it was a most interesting journey indeed.
In order to be prepared for the start of university on Monday, I thought I might as well spend today (this sunny lovely Friday) going to the uni from the station in Footscray, seeing how much time it takes and making sure I don't get there late. It's better I find out now before classes start, eh?
So I awoke at 7 AM. Anyone who knows me well knows that Tony waking up at such an hour is like a dog who speaks. Very rare.
I quickly went through my morning routine, knicked off to the local train station and, along with Rob, Mick and Steve, caught the 8 AM train to Footscray. I was enthusiastic at the time, and Tony being enthusiastic at such an hour is like a dog who talks Norwegian - even rarer.
I'm miserable with directions, you know. I can hardly remember where I am right now let alone where my university is, so when I peered over at the sign that stated that a bus would be going to Ballarat Road, in all my wisdom I concluded that Ballarat Road leads to uni. Onward, to BUS!!
I got on the bus through the side entrance and got scolded by the unfriendly bus-driver for doing such. I suppose he thought I'd had intentions to hide in the completely empty vehicle without paying. That'd be that camoflague of mine that everyone's always talking about, eh?
The delightful bus-driver took me along Ballarat Road, and I looked down at my watch. It was around 8:35; classes would start at 9 if I had any.
Each stop we went past was another place I was unfamiliar with. I watched on as a trio of goths boarded, an old woman muscled her way through the throng specifically to get off first, and I think the bus-driver tried to kill me with his thoughts.
Regardless, it was around ten minutes later when I thought to myself, 'Ballarat Road is very long.' I got off the bus at some random station and walked into the florist, where I was informed that Victoria University was indeed on Ballarat Road... in the other direction.
Huh. Interesting.
So bravely, I treaded in the direction specified by the florist, and later a Holden dealership when I had forgotten. It took... longer than I had expected. 7.78 KM longer.
I got to the University, then decided I should see how long the tram would take to get there. Seeing how the tram was being a bit of a bastard and wasn't coming anytime soon, I followed the tram line into the heart of Footscray. Quite the interesting place. All sorts of delightful hobos wandering about, motorists who were out to kill me, and 86% of a population that spoke Chinese.
And of course, I know absolutely nothing about the Chinese language whatsoever. I think there's a Mandarin in there somewhere. Regardless, it meant that directions were not very helpful.
I finally got to the end of the tram line, and to my astonishment and horror, where was that located? Why, just outside the Footscray station. A couple feet away was the bus stop where I had caught the bus that had lead me the wrong way in the first place.
My commentary was colourful, and people around no doubt thought I was insane as I stood there in the street, laughing at the irony. In my defence, it was 35 degrees celsius, man.
I took the tram back to the uni and checked my watch. 11 AM. I had been walking about for two and a half hours... best not to do that on an actual school day, then.
The interesting thing here was that by this point my brain was playing funny little tricks on me. Off in the distance, I could see Melbourne. And I thought, that's not that far to walk, right? Footscray Park to Spencer Street? Twenty minutes, tops. Suuuuuure...
The following journey was quite excellent. In the direct sunlight, I walked through several townships, ended up in Moonee Ponds for no particular reason, and started talking to pigeons along the way. They did not talk back.
Walking from Footscray to Moonee Ponds is about 3.62 km in a car. On foot, I'm just going to go right out and times that number by three. Yessiree, I don't care how factually wrong that is, it was 10.86 km by my count. I had to take several random turns through completely unrelated places to get there, various dank alleys and drug districts, I should've died twice along the way, no doubt.
After walking... a lot, I realised that there were a whole lot of 'Melbourne' signs about, but not any of the Melbourne that I'm familiar with. Where were the stores? Where were the tourists? Where was my overpriced coffee, dammit?!
...I was in North Melbourne, apparently. What's in North Melbourne that isn't in the central business district? A lot of nothing, it seems. I had been duped. I was in 'pretend' Melbourne with very little sanity left intact. I now blamed Rob for this; he's the one who told me to catch the 410 bus several hours ago. I'm sure that's related somehow.
By the time I got to Spencer Street (by tram, mostly) I was drained of all life. I just wanted to go home, and as I made a final walk from Spencer Street to the Southern Cross Station, I recalled something interesting. I had a train ticket in my pocket that would've taken me from Footscray to the city in about eight minutes.
Excellent! Excellent indeed that it was now 2 PM, I had a sunburn with the size and perhaps population of North Dakota, and I was too dead from heat stroke to reach out and strangle the person next to me.
So what was the point of this story? That it took me five and a half hours to do something that should've taken ten minutes. I like to take my time, I suppose.
Allow me to convert all of these funny little figures here...
1. Several hours in the direct heat of 35 degrees Celsius equates to 95 degrees Farenheit. I think. I suppose.
2. A brisk walk of 24.4 km with little to no resting time is equivalent to 15.2 miles. Not quite 500 miles, then.
3. Australia has no pennies. We used to have a two-cent coin, too. It had a lizard on it. I like lizards.
So yeah. I'm pretty much dead. It's... not that great.
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