Early 2020 AD. Danny and I embark on a 21st century Odyssey. On the Majestic Princess from Sydney to New Caledonia, Vanuatu and Fiji. Back to Sydney, then to Melbourne and flying back home.

On the third day in Sydney we decided to go outside the city center. Our first choice was the NSW Railway Museum, but it’s realistically unreachable by train. Which is ironic really. It would take a train or two and a bus. Both of which don’t run every hour. So no.

Instead we went to Parramatta, which the guidebook and Sydney.com advertised as interesting. Honestly it wasn’t really. At least not on a Blue Monday morning. But at east we saw ‘real’ suburban Australia.

So I can’t tell much about Parramatta to be honest.

Sydney Olympic Park

On the way back to the center we hopped off at Lidcombe and took a shuttle service to Olympic Park. Which was as dead as a dodo on a Blue Monday morning but looked promising. Maybe it’s fun when a game, race or swim meet is on.

Sydney Trains

But at least we got to ride on Sydney Trains, controlled by Transport for NSW. The rides were nice, the rolling stock decent and the stations clean and practical.

A fun feature are the reversible sears so you can always face the direction of travel. More odd is the three-seat configuration. Do you want to be the middle one?

I remember that day to be and odd day. But I’m happy to have been outside the city centre.