16 February 2024 (Pre day 2)
We left home at 8:15on foot, arriving
right on time for our first bus. We both wore our new raincoats purchased for
this walk. We have previously only had cheap raincoats because Queensland rain tends not to leave you cold, but along the Southern Ocean we felt we should be
prepared for rain accompanied by cold wind.
The raincoats worked well but everything that was not covered was wet
through, including our jeans.
At
Maroochydore Bus Station we waited for our next bus to the Maroochydore
Airport.
https://translink.com.au/travel-with-us/around-queensland/sunshine-coast
https://www.sunshinecoastairport.com.au/
Arriving at the airport we
queued up with hundreds of Taylor Swift fans heading to Melbourne for her
concert. We were checked in nicely on
time for our scheduled flight time, unfortunately the flight was delayed thirty
minutes. By the time it was time to
board we were almost dry only to be soaked again getting across the tarmac to
the plane.
Our seats were on the emergency
exits so while we had loads of leg room, we did not have any view from the
windows. The plane was full of Taylor
Swift fans and Drew was definitely in a very small minority on the plane, being
male. At the end of the flight one of the hostesses played a Taylor Swift song
via her phone through the plane’s announcement system – not exactly great
audio, but the fans seemed to love it.
The plane landed in Melbourne approximately twenty to twenty-five
minutes behind schedule. We then
collected our baggage and joined the queue for the Skybus. We only had to wait through two cycles
despite the crowds, so pretty quick.
https://www.melbourneairport.com.au/
https://www.skybus.com.au/
Arriving at Southern Cross Station
we were reminded of Thomas the Tank Engine – with all 16 platforms under one
roof. Being 5:30pm there were a lot of
trains running so we only needed to wait for a few minutes before boarding a
train . Then just a short walk to our
overnight accommodation.
https://southerncrossstation.com.au/
A day full of travel – 4 buses, 1
plane and 1 train
Walking 4.4km
