deird_lj

I just had a ridiculous afternoon of not getting things done.

As often happens, I had to go out to a train station and inspect something. In this case, the train station in question was Tyabb - otherwise known as The Middle Of Nowhere.

To get to Tyabb, I had to take a normal train to the end of the line (1 hour), then take a special middle-of-nowhere train to Tyabb (30 minutes, plus 30 minutes waiting for the train), get out, look at the station roof, wait for a train going back the other way (30 minutes waiting, 30 minutes travel), then take the normal train back to the city (30 minutes waiting, 1 hour travel).

For those of you who aren't into maths, that's a total time of four and a half hours. Assuming everything goes to plan.

Today, everything did not go to plan.

I got to the end of the line, just in time to find out that the middle-of-nowhere train had broken down, and we'd have to wait for a bus instead.

The bus was half an hour late. But it arrived eventually.

One bus ride later, the bus pulled up at a station about halfway along its route and the driver looked at me and said "You're getting off at Tyabb, right?"
"This is Tyabb?"
"Yep. Tyabb. Right here."
...so I got off.

It was not Tyabb.

Instead, I was at Baxter. Also known as The Middle Of Nowhere - but a different bit of Nowhere than the bit I wanted to visit.

The Baxter train station was deserted, and because of the breakdown, there wouldn't be a train visiting it again for several hours. I did some quick calculations and realised that if I waited there, I wouldn't be home until 8pm.

There was a bus-stop, though. I went over to check when the next bus would be coming - and discovered that the next bus would be arriving at 7:30am tomorrow.

*sighs*

So, in the end, I paid $20 for a taxi (that I can't get back because of budget cutbacks in the office), spent nearly six hours travelling to the middle of nowhere and back again, and got absolutely no inspecting done. Hooray!