The journey from Melbourne to Sydney may not have been all that long in terms of miles or kilometeres, but it surely was long in terms of the physical tool it took on us as pilgrims. I suppose that a part of being a pilgrim is supposed to be that the journey takes some real effort so that having achieved the end bears a cost worthy of the end desired. Still, that wonderful theological thought did not make the trip itself any easier.
I do have to commend the Days in the Diocese organizing group for the incredible logistical undertaking. We met at the school as I stated in the last post. There, we were joined by hundreds of other pilgrims who had spent time in and around Melbourne during those days. We were issued luggage tags for our bags, since they would not be able to travel on the same bus with us. These were eventually scanned and loaded into the back of a large moving truck. About 6:30 or so we were ushered to a bus. The side of it proudly proclaimed that belonged to St. Paul Episcopal Grammar School. It was certainily a step up from the traditional yellow school bus of the States, but not quite as comfortable as the tourist coaches that are common there. There was no bathroom on the bus. The distance between seats was more conducive to little children than to those of us who are more than 6 feet tall. I had a neck pillow with me, but it did little good since the backs of the seats ended several inches below my shoulder. By about 7:00 we were finally off. No seats were left empty as several other small groups and parts of small groups were added to ours from the States.
The stops along the way were all pre-scheduled. The organizing group had set up comfort stations in pre-determined locations. The first was at a horse track, the second at a sporting facility, and the third and final one at a dog track. Each of them had bathroom trailers brought in. These were something new to me, and in my opinion a step up from the rows of port-o-potties that one might see in the United States. These were bathrooms built into the sort of trailers that a large semi-truck could haul. One side was the women’s room and one side the men’s. It was still a little cramped, but there were real sinks with real water (albeit cold) as well as flush toilets. In each place there was also food kiosks set up. Finally, in all but the last, there were little booths set up by the local tourist groups, distributing brochures and selling little trinkets so that we at least had some sense of the places through which we werepassing. We finally arrived at the school in a suburb of Sydney that will be our home for the next week at 9:00 that evening.
The parish here met us with the same generosity of spirit that we had experienced in Melbourne. They had pizza and other food for us to welcome us. Unfortunately, my hope that our luggage might have beaten us to Sydney was not realized. It was closer to 11:30 before that happened. When it did arrive it was on several different moving vans, so clearly there had been a baggage transfer station somewhere along the way. Thankfully, no bags were misplaced and everyone received their luggage.
We are sleeping on the floors of classrooms here at the school. We do little else here but sleep. We have to leave the premises by 9:00am at which time the school is locked down. We cannot return until 7:00pm. We must be in by 11:00pm, at which time the school is locked down again. We have the use of the regular school bathrooms, which aren’t bad. There are also sinks in the classroom that make things a little easier. They had prepared for us by installing laundry lines in the rooom as well. The only somewhat dodgy element is the showers. They installed a temporary shower block that is quite literally encolsed in plywood. There are three shower heads in this temporary facility. The good news is that there is hot water. The bad news is that there are about 300 pilgrims staying here at the school. We have been alloted times. The men in our group can use the shower from 9:00-9:40 in the evening. The women are right after us, from 9:45-10:30. While some in our group initially were concerned with the shower itself, my primary concern is with those times. It seems to me that we will not always be here and free during those alloted times. If so, we will basically have to do without showers. We have three classrooms assigned to us. One is men only, one women only, and one mixed. Sunday night the two single sex rooms were full and the mixed room was about half full. Space being what it is these days; we came back Monday evening to discover that eight Italians, both men and women, had been added to fill up the room.
More on our first full day in Sydney in the next post.
