On getting around and about in Sydney

In my last post, I mentioned that complaints about weather seem to be a cross-cultural universal. On the evidence of my now 10 weeks in Sydney, there's another item that might be added to this list: dissatisfaction with the public transport. Despite having an extensive range of options, including ferries, buses, trains, and a monorail, Sydneysiders continually complain about the services provided, and (in at least a couple of cases) display a touching belief that things must be better organised back where I come from. I nearly broke a rib when the image of the Dublin transport system (sic) flashed into mind, while the rampant grumbling that London's transport system evokes is pretty legendary. So I was able to assure them that far-away hills were no greener in this case. In fact, the whole thing verged on becoming a sort of competitive one-downmanship, with both sides swapping their tales of woe in order to prove the inferiority of one's native hemisphere in this regard.

Anyway, as a former denizen of the far-side [of the world], I've been generally quite impressed with how easy it is to get around the Sydney CBD (central district) and nearby suburbs. My first few weeks were spent commuting by bus from my temporary lodgings to the Con[servatorium], and while the route I was on was admittedly a popular one, I never had to wait more than about 15-20 mins, and generally it was under 10. The buses weren't without their drawbacks: they were regularly overcrowded, which was a particular hardship in the blazing summer heat. Moreover, many were restricted to those with pre-paid tickets, which could only be purchased from selected newsagents, often perversely distant from the bus-stop and hard to locate in most cases.

However, since relocating to the North shore in mid-February, I have generally foregone bus travel in favour of the bike or ferry as the means of getting to work. The ferries are one of Sydney's most pleasant if expensive ways of getting around. The journey across the harbour from Kirribilli to Circular Quay only takes about 8 mins, and costs around $4, less if using multi-journey tickets. I've tended to reserve this for wet days, or times when I want to avoid the exertion of cycling. The bike commute only takes 20 mins door to door, but when the temperature is in the low 30s, that's enough to leave one feeling (and looking) like a well-basted turkey.

I acquired a bike through my first ever eBay auction victory, and my first ride could hardly have been more inauspicious, short of ending in hospital. The seller was based in Coogee (pronounced Cudge-ee, for those who care), at some distance from my place, and it was drizzling on the evening I collected it. What should have been a 40-minute trip back was prolonged initially by my errant sense of direction (I didn't have a map), which resulted in my heading south down the coast towards Maroubra, instead of roughly North-West. That detour wouldn't have mattered much, if the rain, which had been merely spitting half-heartedly until this point, hadn't decided to show its monsoon credentials. My forlorn attempts to whistle the Gene Kelly number were soon abandoned - opening one's lips just just let the water in rather than sound out. The literal and metaphorical dampening of my spirits was completed when I got a puncture - I went across one of those perverse Sydney drain covers, which almost seem to be deliberate cycle traps, with wide gaps running parallel to the road direction, instead of perpendicular. So there I was, half lost, miles from home, drenched to the bone, with a useless new bike (which couldn't be taken on the buses), and not a phone box or taxi in sight. Eventually I found a shop open and in the fullness of time was dropped home by a taxi.

In fact, that was only the first of two punctures I've had in the last six weeks. The second was also occasioned by another of those damnable drain covers - I saw it at the last moment, but the traffic was such that I didn't dare swerve aside. Which brings me to another gripe: drivers. Sydney is NOT a cycle-friendly city for a number of reasons (I'll just mention here the scarcity of cycle paths, and the horrendous number of hills, some of which seem like young cliffs in terms of steepness), but chief among them the behaviour of the average car driver, which verges between the discourteous and the positively dangerous. Apparently cyclists are by law entitled to take up an entire lane, which infuriates the drivers. From my Cambridge and Dublin training, I habitually stick close to the kerb (always giving those tyre-killer drains a wide berth), but this doesn't always enable me to escape their aggression. I've lost count of the number of heart-in-mouth moments they've caused me by cutting in ahead abruptly. Taxis, predictably, are the worst but not the only offenders. The idea of cycling to work (as opposed to the full-lycra leisure pursuit) is not yet sufficiently mainstream to imprint consideration of/for cyclists on the popular consciousness. It's a vicious circle, of course, for many refuse to cycle, given how fraught road conditions are. When I told people of my intention in the first few weeks, I got quite a few shakes of the head and expressions of dubeity, which I now understand. Thank heavens that the famous harbour bridge, which I cross twice a day, has a separate cycleway removed from the especially manic road traffic here.

Having started this post with an upbeat attitude on transport in Sydney and poo-pooing the local naysayers, I realise now that I, too, have spent most of my time voicing a litany of complaints. Does this burst of querulousness seem like a proportional response to trials beyond endurance, or does it mark my assimilation of Sydney mores? In short, is this the first sign that I am going native?

More soon.