When the Cheshire emerges...

It only took 11-and-a-half months, but I caught a bus in Dubbo for the first time last week.

It was my day off and I had to get my car serviced. The place I go is only a 10-minute walk from the centre of the east, Orana Mall.

I got a bus back to the city so I could continue with the rest of my day (there's not enough to hold anyone at Orana for four hours). It was one of the newer siblings in the fleet so the seats were really hard and uncomfortable, but at least it was clean.

The trip, however, was certainly an adventure. I'm used to decently long bus rides in Adelaide so don't mind that side of it. But they're pretty direct. This route, the quickest between the two points by a minute at 22 minutes, went through some streets I never knew existed.


So the pen marks Cobra Street/Mitchell Highway (CBD left, Orana Mall right), the quickest way by car at approximately five minutes. I took the green route - while it doesn't look too bad, look at the loop to the right. You go the other way before turning back! That was frustrating.

***

I still decided to catch a bus to get back to my car, and this time got one of the old ones.

Like the old Adelaide seats, got a bit reminiscent here

Only after the bus in photo one came, he told me a following bus would drop me off at a better stop. I wait for a minute totally confused - and rightly so. The bus I ended up taking, where I got to sit on these old-school red seats, is a one-off that isn't on the timetable.

That would be right.

So I stumbled upon a direct route from the CBD to the mall that I found out only comes at 2.45pm, and only in that direction. Random is really the best word to describe the whole thing - but I did get there in the end. The first day of real spring weather helped the situation along too.