It’s bye bye to Peg today, our home for the last two months. Peg has always seemed a more friendly name than the rather aggressive ‘Hostile Takeover’ as dubbed by Wicked. Peg because the clothes pegs used to fix things to the outside of the van were often left clipped to the little gutter around the roof as we travelled along. We drop our gear at the Britannia on William, a rambling Victorian building in the heart of ‘China Town’, with friendly staff, spanking new ablutions and a spotless kitchen. We then head out to Bursford to put the van through the car wash and take it back to the Wicked depot. The young English girl in charge of the office is very candid about the companies failings; allegedly it is well-known throughout the company that the Darwn office doesn’t service the vehicle it sends out and noone sees fit to do anything about it! What’s more according to her when the police slap an unroadworthy notice on any of the vans, the company simply changes the registration plates and re-registers the van rather than undergoing the mandatory road test. Another little bit of information we gleaned – each van has a spare key under the wheel arch. Good for Wicked because they don’t have to come out when drivers lose their keys; good for thieves too, no need to make a nasty mess smashing the window to get in. A final irony is the sad and sorry tale of our Wicked encounter – the reg0 ((road tax) had run out several days before the end of our hire! My advice? Don’t hire from Wicked.
The transport system is excellent here. Like other Australian cities a bus ticket lasts for two hours and during that time you can make as many bus trips as you like. On top of which all travel within the central free transit zone is – free. Boris Johnston take note!