And I caught a bus !

 After my session in Albury Library this morning, I caught a bus back from MaMa to the dealership to collect my car after being serviced.

That may not seem like much, but as public transport around Beechworth is almost non-existent, this was the first time I've caught an ordinary bus, as opposed to the V/line service that connects with the Melbourne Train, in the ten years I've lived here.

In fact I've caught more buses in Sydney and Perth and Canberra than I have round here.

Geography is kind of important to the story.

Albury, and its twin city Wodonga, straddle the New South Wales/Victoria border.

The AW city centre to city centre service is operated on behalf of Transport Victoria by Dyson's. The bus leaves from QE II square just outside of MaMa, in the centre of Albury, which is of course in New South Wales. QE II is where most of the buses in Albury end up, and it functions as a bus interchange for the city - and for Wodonga and surrounding parts of Victoria.

If you looked at the timetable and route information displayed you wouldn't know that there were buses to places in Victoria - it's all for Transport NSW buses to Laverton Thurgoona and other Albury suburbs - not a Victorian bus timetable or sign in sight (There's also a direct bus to Beechworth a few times a day, and you wouldn't guess that either- absolutely no information - you just need to trust the online timetables on both the Transport NSW and Transport Victoria sites).

Anyway, being a trusting soul, I stood in the freezing cold and lo and behold, an ordinary green and white Dyson's service bus arrived. 

I stuck my arm out and it stopped, and the doors opened, allowing me to get on.

How to pay for it was the next problem - there's absolutely no information online as to ticket costs, and it was only by using Google's AI search that I found you could pay with money - as in these funny bits of metal you find in the pockets of jackets and coats you havn't worn for years.

And Google was absolutely right.

No contactless, no Myki, no Opal, just cash, and what's more they gave you change.

and you even get a paper ticket!

Fortunately, I'd had a rummage the evening before and found around five bucks worth of change, so it was pretty straightforward.

There's a bus stop just outside the car service centre so the whole process was fairly painless, even if an act of blind faith was required that the bus really left from where they said ....