Victoria Day 7 - Puffing Billy, Belgrave

Assalamualaiku. G'Day Mate!

Previous post (here).

Bangun seawal pagi untuk kejar masa bayar parking berkupon. Saman di Australia ni bukan alang-alang 'murah' ya tuan puan. Jadinya kalau boleh elak, sila lah elak. Untuk avoid nama dari blacklist pun ya juga. Tapi kalau agak-agak mau merasa feeling bayar saman di luar negara, bolehlah try. Koh!

After breakfast, campak semua bag dalam kereta. Check out terus sebab hostel tu tiada tempat untuk simpan luggage. Nasib baik kereta seluas alam, lagipun memang since Day 2 hidup nomad. Ngeh.

Plan harini, pi Belgrave mau naik enjin tut tut. Then pi Southern Cross Station untuk simpan bag dalam lockers, later drop kereta sewa di office Apex before explore Melbourne City with the remaining time we have. Untunglah flight malam, boleh juga jalan-jalan cuci mata kejap. Trip ni memang ndak sempat explore sangat the city hence plan untuk repeat Melbourne. Insha Allah one day (amin, amin), bawa Bunda pula next.  

1 Aug 2015

Belgrave, Melbourne

It only took us less than an hour to reach Belgrave from the hostel. Don't ask me about the route because we only followed where the GPS took us. Disuruh ke kiri, maka ke kiri lah kami. If ndak silap, ada masuk highway & housing area juga. 

Sampai Puffing Billy carpark, cari parking. Then dari carpark, kena menapak naik sikit pi ticket counter. Sebelum beli tiket, kami discussed dulu which route to take. It is best to study the train timetable prior coming as to avoid wasting your time should you arrived when the train just departed. Sejam dua juga mau menunggu tau. 

As for us, schedule memang sudah ada cuma belum sure which route to take. After menimbang menara, we decided to take the Belgrave - Emerald - Lakeside route. The nearest (and cheapest) route will be from Belgrave to Emerald. But we have to wait at Emerald station merely an hour for the return train from Lakeside. So alang-alang tunggu, better pi Lakeside station terus. By the way, please note train fare both route berbeza. The route to Lakeside mahal sikit; tapi ni harga 4 tahun lepas lah. In which aku memang totally lupa how much we paid. 

Latest ticket price & timetable please refer ---> here 

And sebab malas menceceh pasal Puffing Billy ni, bolehlah baca summary si John. Senang kerja aku, bagi link jak kan. Ain't taking any credit for myself though hence the link instead of copy-paste. Thank you John for sharing the info.

#1 Ticket counter

#2 Chance for Melbourne indeed; especially for the young generations

#3 Luckily hujan sudah berhenti masa kami tengah tunggu train

#4 Ms H repeatedly told us she had experienced classic-er train than Puffing Billy. She was referring to the train back in her hometown; Tenom (in Malaysia). 

#5 The track

#7 Busy lah si Err posing sendiri, tiba-tiba tersembul seketul Ms H di jendela sebelah

#8 Gigih lah tunggu train moving on curved track

#9 First leg of the classic train journey; we stopped by at Emerald station where few passengers disembarked here

#11 Hello Ahjussi!

#12 Continued our journey to Lakeside station

#13 Tickets not-so close up shot

#14 Udah sampai. 

Sampai Lakeside, passengers boleh turun & enjoyed the scenery for 15 minutes. So ambil lah peluang ambil gambar sana sini. 

Btw, the engine driver used to work in Penang so he was pretty excited when he found out I'm a Malaysian. Chit chat berkenalan, terus imbau kenangan gitu. Tu lah si Err pun ambil kesempatan masuk engine car bagai. 

#15 Pensebok abadi

#16 One for the memory

#17 Oppa comel

#18 This train didn't stop at Lakeside so we assumed it will go straight to Gembrook (the final station)

#19 Train orang ado-ado. This includes lunch on board. Kami marhaein cuma, so naik lah keretapi kelas biasa

#20 Time to go back to Belgrave. Goodbye Train Guard, see u when I see u

#21 Masih gagah posing gini. Dengan harapan, Edward muncul di sebalik pokok. Harapan!

#22 We purposely chose to sit at the other side of the train. Untuk dapat different view

#23 Gerabak sekali dengan lambakan information board. Memang sempat baca habis

#24 Busier than ever; carrying happy passengers like us. We're delighted to be able to be one of the contributor to keep it puffing tut tut!

#26 Kanak-kanak lebih umur riang gumbira

#27 Mission accomplished!

#28 Few tracks were built on hills side hence landslide is something unavoidable 

#29 Another curved track; combination both modern & classic

#30 Approaching Belgrave Station

#31 I don't remember how long the return journey was but this picture tells me that we might arrive before 230pm. 

#Changing the schedule / information; the manual way. 

For your information, all the workers at Puffing Billy (including the booking clerks, shop assistant) are volunteers here. It means; they don't get paid. They are doing this for the sake of Puffing Billy; to restore & keep it operating as Australia's premiere heritage steam railway.

By travelling aboard Puffing Billy; we actually are contributing to train, tracks & land maintenance, marketing, administration as well as covering for the coal cost. Yes; coal. Kan enjin tut tut, berasap bagai mestilah guna coal. Siapa yang ndak mau naik train, boleh masuk dalam platform ni untuk bergambar. Just inform pekerja yang jaga tiket tu. Si DJ pi sana (boleh baca sini) untuk bergambar jak sebab minah tu sibuk menerjah Tesselaar Tulip Festival. We didn't get to witness the infamous tulip festival because it wasn't the tulip season when we were there. Bukan rezeki, ndak pa nextime siapa tau akan menjejak (amin, amin). 

Lepas berposing lebih kurang, we quickly made our move out of Belgrave. Semua kena on time harini. Time is extra precious on the last day of the trip.

#Pulang marilah pulang, marilah pulang sebelum jammed

We reached Southern Cross Station without so much hassle. Terima kasih Cik GPS jasa anda dikenang ketat-ketat. Sebab ndak mau bazir duit bayar parking bagai, Ms H & Ms G turun untuk simpan our anak gajah in the locker. Masa sampai haritu, before naik shuttle bus pi hotel...memang aku ada recce location locker ni. Sebab masa DJ datang Melbourne (2013), locker ni wujud. Since aku datang 2 tahun kemudian (2015), tu yang kena make sure locker tu still ada atau tiada. Alhamdulillah, locker tu wujud lagi. The storage is located near the Skybus Hotel Transfer counter. Kalau naik Skybus dari airport, memang akan turun sini. 

Oleh sebab bag kami bertiga boleh muat locker besar so minah berdua tu pilih lah locker besar (bijak!). Cost us AUD 14 for 24 hours. Minimum hour is 3 hours; memandangkan masing-masing ndak yakin sama ketepatan masa sendiri...betterlah ambil 24 jam terus. 

Settled misi simpan bag, marilah bergerak pi Apex office. Ikut contract masa pick up haritu, we will have to return the car by 4pm. Kalau lambat, ada extra charge. Lagipun last shuttle bus (free) from the office to the airport is at 5pm. Harus ndak mau lepas yang tu, else kena tahan teksi balik airport. Poket sudah menipis, teksi was a big NO-NO. 

Ada cerita juga masa on the way return kereta sewa tu. Memang kenangan abadi mengusik jiwa sampai sekarang. Nanti aku continue cerita yang tu. Over-berjela sudah entry kali ni.

Till then, wassalam.

eryantierdabdulkarim