Last minute kafuffle
I spoke to Kevin last night and he suggested flying down and/or flying back from Sydney to Melbourne. This was an initially appealing idea, because you can get cheap airfares at Virgin, Jetstar and Tiger at the moment. Of course the dates you can get them for are restricted, so I thought right - travel down by train, come back by plane (it was relative easy to get a flight back on the 24th from any of them. But they all require Master/credit cards to work, except for Virgin which also has something called Poli which is some form of Internet banking.
I got as far as working out the details for a flight back using Virgin and tried Poli, but it bombed out because "my PC clock wasn't in sync"!!! Frustrating. I can get Kevin to book and pay for this later today, though I think I'll just come back by the train. It's about an 11 hour trip either way (sitting up) instead of an hour's by plane. The big difference is the luggage you can take with you, and the price.
- One way from Melbourne to Sydney by train for me is $33, and for luggage I can check in two items, each weighing between 5kg and 20kg and not more than 70 x 60 x 50cm (length x height x width).
- One way from Melbourne to Sydney by plane for me (via Virgin) is $48 for the seat plus an extra $20.95 for luggage + insurance for a total of $68.95, and my luggage is restricted to a "$10 fee per sector for up to 23kg allowance".
I think I'll just take the train both ways - the total is still only going to be less than the airfare one way!