Getting places

Nobody in our household drives. We don't have a car, and don't hold any driver's licenses (although young Maddy might be going for hers soon!).

We're pretty used to walking places, and everyone has a bike too. I sometimes ride down to the shop (and most of the way back), but I haven't grown comfortable enough to ride on streets that get more than minimal traffic. When it's not quite so hot, we hope to go on a few rides together along the reserve.

We sometimes get lifts from helpful friends, or use taxis when we need to get somewhere far away or get there quickly. For long-distance trips we catch busses.

Since we live in a corner of the city that's pretty far away from everything else, I don't get into the city centre much. However, it's not an enormous city (about 20,000 people), so it's not impossible to walk to most places. It's just a matter of planning ahead and accounting for travel time.

Today I'd built up a list of things I needed to deal with in town, so I timed the journey. It takes about a quarter of an hour to get down to the closest "corner shop", and half an hour to the nearest shopping district. From there, it's only another ten minutes to the city centre. Unlike Hobart, the core part of the CBD is only five or six blocks across, so it's pretty quick to run around to different places.

So I managed to get all of my tasks done, or at least made an attempt. A couple of errands were thwarted due to non-availability of goods. I met up with +Annette, and we got a lift home with a friend.

It was a big expedition day, but I'll probably get to potter around the local neighbourhood for a good long while before I have to go into town again!