A side trip to Melbourne – Day 318

Over dinner last night we changed our plans for today so instead of looking around the Old Port Area of Echuca (which we will now do tomorrow), we decided to go to Melbourne for the day, by train. We had no particular reason to go to Melbourne other than for the train trip itself and at the fares on offer, why not?

Melbourne lies approximately 225 kilometres to the south of Echuca and the train typically takes three hours and twenty minutes to get there. To maximise our time in the city, we decided to take the first train, leaving Echuca at 7 am and getting into Melbourne at 10.20 am. If we then got a mid-afternoon train home that would give us a good four hours in the city and get us home back to Echuca for dinner.

Our (return) train to Echuca. Actually manufactured in Australia!

Yesterday I had confirmed that the tickets would cost us an extremely reasonable A$10 return. In fact, the $10 represents the maximum daily amount payable for a full day’s access to all trains in Victoria and city transport within Melbourne.

This low daily cap was introduced in the aftermath of Covid, in the hope that it would encourage the masses in Melbourne to jump on the train and visit regional Victoria which had disproportionately suffered due to the State Government’s draconian Covid lockdowns, in Melbourne in particular. My reader may recall that Melbourne holds the dubious honour of having been locked down more days, weeks and months than anywhere else in the world during the pandemic.

I have not seen any official details about the success or otherwise of this initiative but intuition tells me that if it did anything it would result in people from regional Victoria going into the city for the day rather than city people visiting the regions – the exact opposite of what the government wanted. Using today’s trip as anecdotal evidence, it seems that the scheme has not enticed anyone (except us) to use the train, in either direction. Both ways, our train was pretty much empty. As it turned out, our especially early arrival at Echuca station ( seats are unreserved) to ensure we got a seat, lest hordes of Blue Grass Festival revellers be joining us given that the festival finished last night, was a tad overkill and obviously unnecessary.

Our train carriages to and from Melbourne. Clearly cheap fares don’t fill trains!

That said, from our perspective, the programme was a tremendous success, particularly when I found out that my interstate Seniors Card was valid and my fare was a mere A$5. All I can say is, Thank you, Comrade Dan!

Comrade Dan refers to Daniel Andrews the now former State Premier of Victoria who earned the nickname Comrade ( or Chairman) Dan for his alleged cosying up to China while the central (Federal) Government of the day was doing everything possible to destroy Australia’s relationship with our number one trading partner. Incidentally, Australia is one of the few countries, if not the only country, in the world to run a trade surplus with China. I have digressed.

On arriving at Echuca station we were advised that, due to track works, our train would terminate at Sunbury, an outer Melbourne suburb, and from there we would need to take a local train into the city. This, assuming minimal waiting times for connections, would add an hour each way to our trip, cutting our time in Melbourne to just over a couple of hours. As we were only travelling for the journey itself we decided to proceed. We would still have time for lunch.

The ride was quiet and smooth, in well-appointed and clean carriages, and to our surprise, we arrived into Bendigo on schedule. In Bendigo, our train connected with another equally sparsely used train, coming in from Swan Hill in the north-west of the state, before continuing on to Melbourne or Sunbury, as it was, today. While the carriages were clean the outside windows were not so the few photos I took along the way are not of a quality I would publish here.

Our train (left) comes together with the train from Swan Hill

While not a massive inconvenience, I found it somewhat odd when it was announced that everyone would have to get off the train in Bendigo as our train was joined to the one from Swan Hill. I recalled our recent trip to Japan where the famous Shinkansen bullet trains (and other trains) routinely couple and decouple from each other without announcement or the slightest nudge that would alert a passenger to what was happening. Sadly the need for passengers to disembark for this simple manoeuvre speaks volumes but I won’t digress again!

Shinkansen trains coming together (kissing) in Japan – a tourist attraction in its own right

As there was no food car, nor vending machine on the train and we had not stopped en route to the station this morning I was, by this stage, dying for a coffee. On alighting the train in Bendigo I made a bee-line for a small cafe in the station only to be confronted by a long queue of people who were clearly not from the two trains in the station. Reluctantly, I had to reboard the train without a coffee and suffer caffeine withdrawal symptoms for a few more hours. Oh, the trials and tribulations of a travelling life!

While we departed Bendigo about ten minutes late we made up most of the lost time on the way to Sudbury where, according to my travel app, a train to the city was due to leave four minutes after our scheduled arrival time. Such a short connection would not have caused me the slightest worry in Japan but here I was far from hopeful, especially when the conductor announced that a train to the city would leave nearly an hour after our anticipated arrival into Sunbury. I despaired given that our time in Melbourne had already been reduced to just over two hours due to the track works.

We actually arrived into Sunbury only about two minutes late and knowing that the connecting train we hoped to board was leaving from the adjoining platform we darted, at full speed, across the bridge to that platform where the train was still waiting. We had made it just in time and in less than a minute we were on our way into the city. Had we casually left the train and walked we would certainly have had to await the connecting train the conductor had told us about.

As it was we pulled into Flinders Street Station at 11.20, an hour later than scheduled but in line with our expectations given the work on the line.

Flinders Street Station, Melbourne

We had a couple of hours to amuse ourselves which really was insufficient to do anything much more than a leisurely lunch. Accordingly, we had a leisurely lunch and then a short stroll around the city centre, without straying too far from the train station.

For lunch, we opted for a cafe in one of the city’s famous cafe alleys, luckily for us just a stone’s throw from Flinders Street Station. The food was distinctly average and overpriced and, to be honest, most of the food we have had out in country pubs and cafes was as good or better than we encountered here.

One of Melbourne’s popular cafe alleys

While the lunch looked fine a cooking oil change was certainly overdue – and we were their first lunch order of the day!

After our slowly paced lunch we headed back to the station, enjoying a few sights and the feel of a large city as we did so.

There is loads of excellent street art around the city centre but, alas, we had no time to explore that today

A city tram

Gog and Magog on guard since 1892 in the Royal Arcade

We were soon back at Flinders Street Station from which we retraced our steps to Sunbury where we enjoyed a coffee as we awaited our train back to Echuca – into which we arrived on schedule.

A nice quiet trip back to Echuca

All in all, I had a very pleasant and restful day and found it well worth the little effort (and cost) involved. In the interest of fair reporting, Andy, not sharing my love of train travel, found the trip dull and boring!

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The next review from my Adelaide to Canberra road trip can be found HERE.

Should you wish to follow this road trip from the beginning please start HERE.

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