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It’s Arddun’s maiden trip on an Action bus, and she seems to be enjoying herself. The car’s in the workshop this morning and I thought I’d be brave and try public transport WITH pram AND nappy bag AND everything else in between. So far, so good…

Update: Return trip. 3:11pm

The good:

  • Not having to park at Canberra Centre and forking over some rude amount after movie and lunch.
  • Not having to park – period. Which means not having to pack and unpack Arddun and pram/capsule/other in and out of the car. Especially when she’s decided to take a nap. Sure the bus ride’s longer. But by the time I add up parking and fiddling, it comes up to about the same, really.
  • Not having to drive. Which means giving Arddun almost my full attention when travelling. Which SO beats dealing with idiotic drivers. Except if the idiotic driver happens to be the bus driver. But hey, you can’t buy perfection for $2.

The bad:

  • Having to travel light. Gotta keep shopping to a minimum so if I were planning to go nuts at a Myer sale, I’ll probably need the car.
  • Civic bus interchange. Specifically, dealing with cigarette smoke while waiting for the bus at Civic bus interchange. Dodgy and annoying.
  • Not travelling during peak hour. Because I take up 3 wheelchair access seats – two to flip up to make space for the pram, one to sit on – it’s not exactly rush-hour friendly.

The ugly:

  • Dealing with buses that have crap wheelchair-friendly suspension. Our return trip was an exercise in pram acrobatics because the bus – though claiming to be wheelchair-friendly – barely curtseyed an inch when the driver tried to lower the entrance step nearer to the curb. And because he wasn’t that great at stopping near the curb to begin with, I practically threw the pram out of the bus so it could make the gap. NO help from any of the young men around me, of course. Chivalry died in a blaze of fire in the 1950s, its charred remains eaten and then spat out by mongrel dogs. Or so it seems.
  • It rained on the return trip and although we had the rain cover for the pram, I think Arddun felt like she was in a fishbowl towards the end.

VERDICT:
I’d do it again. It was relatively painless and I loved not having to waste money or braincells over parking. Plus, Arddun was cool with it until she had to go under the rain cover.