73) The Seniors Card

Do you get email messages about the joys of old age? You know the kind of thing :-

Kidnappers are not very interested in you. In a hostage situation you are likely to be released first. No one expects you to run--anywhere. People call at 9 pm and ask, "Did I wake you?" There is nothing left to learn the hard way. Things you buy now won't wear out. Yes, all these things are wonderful but the thing I like best about old age is my Senior’s Card.

Now that we are Permanent Residents of New South Wales we are entitled to this wonderful little card. It gives us all sorts of discounts on products, most of which we never buy so it is the excursion ticket that we love best. The first time we used our Seniors Card we took a train to Central Station in Sydney to meet up with some friend. We intended having lunch in town with them, as we had not seen them for quite some time. We were thrilled that our return tickets to Sydney and back had only cost us $2.50 each; before we had our cards we had paid $15.60 each so we were very pleased with the saving. Our friends suggested we catch another train into the shopping area of the city so that we could go for lunch. We thought that was fine and asked where we should get our tickets. They laughed at us and explained that the ticket we had bought at Gosford station was an excursion ticket and that would allow us to travel by train, bus or ferry anywhere in NSW for the whole of that day. Wow! What a bargain! That day, after lunch and a stroll around the shops we caught another train to Circular Quay and had a cool drink in the shadow of the Opera house and the wonderful Harbour Bridge. At the end of our day out our friends boarded a ferry to take them home and we went back to Central Station and caught a train home to Gosford. All for $2.50, who could complain about that?

Now that we have discovered this benefit we use it whenever we can. We have visited museums and other places of interest and we have taken trains and ferries and buses. We are learning our way around the system and don’t look quite so lost any more. The people of Sydney are usually so friendly and helpful. If we stand at the corner of the street with our map in our hands trying to decide if we should be turning left or right someone will usually stop and offer to help us find our way. Once when we were outside the Maritime museum and wanting to get back to the station we asked the driver of a bus which bus would take us to Central but he could not tell us. A gentleman standing behind us said “I am going to Town Hall which is the station before Central if you want to come with me and just get off at the next station I will show you the way”. It turned out that the gentleman was a volunteer guide at the Maritime museum every Monday and so we went with him and got to our destination.

Entry to the Maritime Museum is free of charge and is very interesting, we need to go back again some time to see the things we did not have time for on our first visit. We also need to re-visit the Power House Museum. This one is not free, there is a charge of $10 each but our magic Senior Card gets us in for $6 each and it is certainly worth the $12 we spent. It is a museum of science, technology, design, decorative arts and social history so there is plenty to see. One of the things that really interested my husband Jonathan, was the Boulton and Watt engine. It was made by engineer James Watt and entrepreneur Matthew Boulton of Birmingham, England. It was installed in Whitbread's London brewery in 1785 and was used there for 102 years, powering equipment for grinding and lifting malt, stirring vats, and pumping water and beer. Professor Archibald Liversidge, a trustee of the Museum, was in London when the engine was taken out of service and asked that it be donated to the Museum. It arrived in Sydney aboard the sailing ship 'Patriarch' in 1888. The engine still works and we watched as a young man started it up and let it run for a little while so that we could see it in motion.

Another attraction for us is the Pyrmont Bridge in Darling Harbour. It is the world's oldest surviving electrically operated swingspan bridge. The current swingspan bridge opened in 1902 and replaced the first Pyrmont Bridge which began operating in 1857. The swingspan allows access for vessels that are too tall to travel under the bridge. It is now closed to vehicular traffic and just the monorail and pedestrians travel across it. Jonathan as a boilermaker can appreciate the skill in its making, even though it is made of wood, and can spend hours just examining it.

There are so many other things that we would like to see in Sydney and with our Seniors Card it is all possible. We want to visit the Houses of Parliament, the Art Gallery, the Botanical Gardens and take ferry rides to the northern suburbs.We really do appreciate our cheap fares and are very gratful to the New South Wales government for them.