Shitting Bricks
It takes me about 1 hour 45 minutes to get to university by car, train and bus (on a good day). That’s just a one way trip, too. Some days I leave uni during peak hour (5-6pm) and by the time the train arrives at Central station, there aren’t any seats left so I have to stand for the whole hour. I got told of a way to beat the crowds by a friend, who also goes to my station (Campbelltown). Although Campbelltown is a suburban station, it’s an interchange for country trains as well (it’s right on the edge). His advice was to catch a country train that went to Goulburn (about 3 hours drive from Campbelltown) – it would travel direct to Campbelltown stopping at only one station on the way (as opposed to 10 or so). Additionally, there’s always seats available, the train is air-conditioned and has a toilet. So, today I tried taking this country train. Oh yeah it was good – nice comfortable seats. I lent back and went to sleep.
I woke up again to see a station fly past the window… “Menangle Park” the sign said. WTF? Where the hell was Menangle Park? I had missed my damn stop by lord knows how far. The train was travelling really fast (faster than it had been through the suburbs) and we were passing farms and fields and shit… Meanwhile my parents were on the way to pick me up from Campbelltown. I hopped off at the next stop, “Menangle”. Damn. It was a two platform station in the middle of nowhere. A few other people got out, but they drove off in cars. I tell you, that station was totally deserted. No cars in the car park, no station attendants, no trains going past. Nothing. Well I always had my mobile phone. One slight problem… zero reception. It wasn’t even registering my phone company. I headed over to the public phone booth… to find that someone had removed the entire phone from the booth. I looked about – I’d have to find a house and ask if someone could let me use their phone, but I looked around and there weren’t any damn houses – just barns! Now I was worrying. It was getting dark and I was starting to freeze. I took out the mobile again, and lo and behold — Reception! Half an hour later I was on the way back home.
Everyone has a story where they’ve missed their train/bus (even plane) stop, and this is mine :).
11:24pm (GMT +10.00) 
