Thursday, April 05, 2012

Curiosities of Buses

Three buses leave from just near where my son currently works, down by Greggs factory.   One is the Balaclava, which drops me right outside my door, another is the Kenmure, which I can get as far as Elgin Rd, and then walk home; a third, I now discover, is the Bradford.   Having been thinking about going on a Bradford bus for some time to see where it actually goes, I asked the driver what stop was the closest to my place.  He thought the stop near the roundabout at Stone St would be closest, before the bus heads off into Kaikorai Valley.

So I got on the Bradford bus.  Talk about a roundabout route, but interesting.  It heads along George and Princes Sts in the same direction as the Balaclava and Kenmure, like them turns into Rattray St, but then at Harvey Norman's corner goes straight up McClaggen St, up Serpentine Ave, turns sharp right into Canongate, up Russell, along Arthur, up Rattray, up Ross, into Highgate, which then becomes Kenmure Rd, down Rosebery (I think) into Beaumont, up Napier, into Jubilee, and onto Mailer, where it climbs up to reach the Stone St roundabout.   I got off in Jubilee St, just before Mailer, courtesy of the friendly driver.

And walked up into Elgin Rd.  And found the Kenmure bus reaching the stop I normally get off at just as I approached it, and then found the Balaclava bus reaching my own home stop just as I approached it a few minutes later.  The latter would have been the most direct route, since it leaves outside my son's work and drops me off outside my own house...literally.

The Kenmure route used to be part of the Balaclava route in the old days, and never went into Stanley St, where I used to live.  Now there's a bus stop outside my old house. 


Furthermore, when I was at school, and had to come up the hill for a music lesson at the convent at St Francis Xavier's, I used to get the Maryhill cable car from Mornington.  It would go down the steep hill at Mornington, up Glenpark Ave, and stop outside my current house.   Where, one day, I fell off the cable car because I presumed it was stopping before it was.

I find all this very interesting.  You may not!

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