Riding the Buses

“If you’re travelling to school, work or just touring around Canberra, ACTION has a bus route to suit your needs.”

A Bus!

Parliament House

Old Parliament House

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Of course we wanted to use the ‘Action’ buses in Canberra because we had used them last year and found them cheap (especially for us Old Pensioned Off Farts), clean, and on time. We found all the drivers very friendly, helpful and a pleasure to be driven by, except for one, who we soon called Mr Magoo. But we’ll discuss him later as he’s not worthy of too much space.

We bought our tickets online before we went, so we could start riding the buses right away. Thanks to good planning accommodation-wise, there were three bus stops within a short distance of where we stayed, so we could easily go off in any direction.

Every day we leapt on a bus at the crack of nine in the morning, and spent each day riding as many buses as possible, since our tickets gave us unlimited travel for a week.

A typical Canberra bus stop and shelter

One day while we were standing on a corner at the City Bus Interchange wondering which bus went where, a Bus Official approached us and asked if we needed any help. He was a distinguished looking man with an American-Australian accent and a wicked sense of humour. His name was Nathan, and he was very helpful and friendly, so a long chat ensued, and we soon forgot where we had been intending to go.

While we talked, other potential bus customers kept interrupting to ask Nathan questions, so we chatted to them too.

This is Sandy, or maybe Alice or Roberta, we forget her name, but she’s a Canadian who had just arrived in Canberra and needed Nathan to tell her how to get to the Australian Institute of Sport. Nathan loves the AIS, so he and Sandy-Alice-Roberta had a good yak about sports before she reluctantly left to catch a bus.

Then we were joined by Nathan’s boss, Ray, a man of vast experience who knew all the routes and times of all the buses. After a long time, we finally remembered that we needed to go to the Bus Information Office to pick up some timetables, so Nathan pointed out where it was, and off we went.

The next day, and the next and the next, we visited Nathan and Ray again in their office or on various street corners, and they advised us of places to visit in the Australian National Capital, told us how to get there, and really made our holiday pleasurable. We think the tourist bureau should be in the same office as Ray and Nathan. They’re certainly a dynamic duo.

Pretty soon, Tony became an expert at hailing the buses, and loved showing off his technique. Or he may have just been waving to Nathan and Ray across the street.

The only bus driver who didn’t come up to scratch was Mr Magoo. He had his radio on full blast, was surly on our arrival, drove way too fast, had yet to learn how to use the brakes, took two old people two stops past Parliament House after a specific request to let them off there, drove over the corners of pavements, and nearly ran over a cyclist and a pedestrian in the city.

But nobody’s perfect.

It’s hard to take good pictures from the window of a bus

To visit the official ACTION bus website, click here > http://www.action.act.gov.au/default.cfm