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Ally Takes a Trip

© Allyso

Oh, there you are! I thought you'd missed the plane! Never mind, here we are at the airport in Sydney, and since we're travelling light we can catch the train to the city.

I hope the flight didn't tire you? It's only two hours or so in the air from Tasmania to Sydney, but the stop-over in Melbourne makes the time stretch to about three and a half. Since Tasmania and NSW are both east-coast states, we're in the same time-zone.

Come on, just along here and down the escalator, and here we are at the station called "Domestic". Got your ticket? We need to be on Platform 1. This is quite an experience for a Tasmanian. The only trains we have are tourist attractions. The Don and Abt Railways of the north west and west coast are great fun, but they don't take you to big cities.

Oh, you hadn't heard of the Abt Railway? We visited Don Railway just a few weeks ago, but here's a good URL for the Abt. http://www.discover.tased.edu.au/heritag...

Oh, this is fun, I'm counting down the stations to Central and Town Hall. That's where we get out and catch the light rail to Darling Harbour. There are lots of attractions there, but of course we're on our way to the Book Fair. It's really a fair for people in the book industry, but a friend of my family works at Koala Books, so I'm going to call and say hello.

The light rail is funny, isn't it? It's almost like a toy. Now here is Darling Harbour, and that big building is the Convention Centre. There are five fairs going on today, and of course the one *we* want is right at the end... Lots and lots of people, all wearing badges.

Hmm, we have to register ourselves! What will you put on your badge? Are you a Writer? Or a Librarian? Are you a Bookseller? An Illustrator? A Teacher? An Editor? I suppose we could always put "Reader"! That's true enough, anyway.

Will you look at all those displays! Not only Australian books, but some published by overseas partners of these companies. Ah, there's the Koala stand, and doesn't it make a lovely display? Ooh, a book about mythical worlds by Penny Hall! I love that kind of thing. I was lucky enough to meet Penny Hall once. She's lovely.

Oh, there's our friend. She's busy with all these official people, so we'll just say a quick hello then we'll go and have a look at some more of Sydney.