City to Bay Fail

This morning, I sprang out of bed at 6:15am, keen as a bean to participate in the City to Bay fun run (or, in my case, fun walk - 3km will do me, cos the 12km would have done me in!). I was at the station by 7, ready to catch the 07:10 train into town, and then the tram down to the Morphettville Junction Centre, where the 3km leg started. I was questioning my sanity a little, because nobody else seemed to be up at this hour.

At 07:15 the train had not arrived, so I re-checked the timetable, and as it turns out I had been reading the Saturday timetable (working all day Saturday seriously screws with your head). No wonder nobody was at the station! So I came back home, did the dishes and went out again. The second time around, the train platform looked eerily similar...

... but this time the train showed up. Following some ticketing validation issues, once in the city, I got on a tram - like all the City to Bay information said I should (it spoke of a ten minute disruption of services while the 12km leg kicked off) - and the driver promptly told me that it wasn't running to Glenelg like normal, and that I needed to catch a bus from in front of the casino. So I moseyed down there, and, with a bunch of people also waiting for a bus, also discovered (from a volunteer who seemed to know as little as we did) that buses weren't actually running from there today because of the event.

Myself and two others who were trying to get to the same place then headed the four or so blocks to Grote St to catch a bus from there, as directed. When we got there a sign told us to head to Pultney St, which is on the other side of town. At this point we decided that if we couldn't get a tram from Victoria Square as we crossed it, that we would throw in the towel, because by now it was ten past nine and we had to be down there in time for a 09:45 start (and they recommend being there half an hour early).

So me, Lorraine (an Irish lass) and Harry (her husband) headed off for Hindley St (the only place in town likely to be open for drinking) for a pint of beer. Unsurprisingly it was the Irish lass' suggestion. At 09:28 we were sipping a nice cold pint of Draught at the Princes Berkely Hotel, surrounded by people still drinking from the night before, and served by a bartender who appeared to be either exhausted, or on drugs. Suffice it to say we got a few comments and whistles showing up in gym gear with our race numbers attached, but we managed to discourage the drunkards and found a quiet seat up the back (unfortunately close to where two dishevelled punters were making out by a pool table). I suppose it wasn't a dead loss because we must have walked close to 3km attempting to find public transport!

So this is what the City to Bay looked like for me this year:

Note that the glass is plastic.

Morals of the story:

1. Don't rely on weekend public transport in Adelaide to function sufficiently get you where you want to go (the fact that my train ran an hour later than I thought probably made it close to impossible to get into town and down to the race start on time, and that's WITHOUT the tram issues). You'd think they'd coordinate PT a bit better when there's a major public event involved, but no. I have used better public transport in developing countries.

2. Make friends with strangers - it makes what would have otherwise been a total write-off of a morning far more interesting.

3. Don't drink at the Princes Berkeley. The floors a sticky, the glasses are plastic and the patrons are seedy (no surprises there, though, because it was one of the only pubs open on a Sunday morning). Again, I've been to cleaner pubs in developing nations.

The End.