The IT Nerd

Since I had Sunday and Monday with nothing to do (as Monday is Canberra Day), I have the opportunity to travel from my hotel to the Melbourne Central Business District where a lot was going on. To get there, I took Public Transport Victoria.

This is a myki card which can be reloaded and allows me to take trains, trams (streetcars), and buses. I borrowed one from one of the employees of the company that I am working for so that I could get around. But tourists can get them at hotels, hostels, and the like. I highly recommend that you get one and they have a deal for tourists to keep your costs down.

You can reload the card at these machines which accept coins, paper currency, or credit cards. Or you could go to the customer service kiosks at rail stations to reload your card. I did the latter.

Now my hotel is one block away from the Glen Waverly Train Station which goes to Flinders Street Station in the Melbourne CBD. This is the train that I took. It’s electric powered and operates in groups of three cars. It also operates underground.

You can easily walk through each three car section to find the seat that suits you. Each car has a pair of doors to separate them.

The trains have automated station announcements backed up by LED displays. You’ll also note the graffiti which is far more prevalent on this transit system than on the Toronto Transit Commission back home for example.

Forty five minutes later, I was at Flinders Street Station which is a large train station that has a very vintage feel to it.

What’s really cool about the Melbourne CBD is that they have a free tram service made up of these vintage trams that take you around the CBD and allow you to see all the key sights.

Just make sure you see this at the tram stop. Alternately, Melbourne has the most extensive tram network in the world with over 250KM’s of routes. You can use your myki card to get on and off them and explore the city.

A bit of Canadian pride here if I may. Melbourne is starting to put these Canadian made Bombardier trams into service. They’re similar to the ones that are going into service in Toronto.

Tune in later for pictures of what I saw during my tour of the Melbourne CBD. I have a lot of pictures to share with you.

This entry was posted on March 9, 2015 at 1:53 am and is filed under Tips with tags Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.