Adelaide Airport Transfers
Adelaide is not a common arrival point for visitors
from overseas, but if you do reach here by air, either
from overseas or by a domestic flight, the airport
is only seven kilometres from the city centre. There
is an airport bus which will take you into the city.
If you wish to pay less, walk to the airport entrance,
about 500 metres, and take a city bus no. 276 or 278
from the far side of the road. You will then have two
hours to take as many buses, trains or trams as you
wish. If you prefer, you can pay a bit more and
travel for the rest of the day. If your destination
is Glenelg, the no. 278 in the opposite direction, from
the near side of the road, will take you there.
Flights to Adelaide
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Long-distance Trains
A few years ago, all long-distance trains here used
to be broad gauge (5 feet 3 inches) and used to operate
from the stately and very convenient Adelaide Station,
in the city centre. Now, however, all interstate trains
are standard gauge and are diverted, therefore, to
Keswick Terminal, which is in an inconvenient location
on the outskirts of the city centre. It is possible
to walk into the city, but it is just a little too
far to be enjoyable, about three kilometres.
To use
a suburban train, you have to go out of the interstate
terminal, turn left, walk up the hill, turn left
across the footbridge and make your way down to one
of the two suburban platforms, guessing on which of
the two a train will arrive first. The suburban station
is unmanned, but you can press a button to try to
find out about train times. Tickets can be bought
from a machine on the train. If you prefer, having
walked this far, you can go a few metres more to the
Anzac Highway and take a bus from the near side of
the road into the city centre.
However, the easiest
method of reaching the city centre from the Keswick
Terminal is to take the Airport Bus which calls
in here every half hour on its way to the city (and
on its way to the Airport too).
Trains using the Keswick Terminal are the Overland
to and from Melbourne four times a week, going by day
and returning by night, the Indian-Pacific between
Sydney and Perth twice a week in each direction and
the Ghan which runs to Alice Springs twice a week,
with one of the journeys continuing to Darwin.
Long-distance Buses
If you arrive by bus, you will
be fortunate, for the long-distance bus terminal is
in the heart of the city in Franklin Street. Greyhound
and McCafferty’s
use the Franklin Street Terminal, as does Stateliner,
which operates most long-distance services within South
Australia. Most other long-distance companies use it
too, but Firefly starts from and terminates at its
office on the other side of Franklin Street, immediately
opposite the main bus terminal.
V-Line, the Victorian railway operator, runs two
co-ordinated services to Adelaide. V-Line, when it
was known as Victorian Railways, was the joint operator,
with South Australian Railways, of the Overland. Now
South Australian Railways has disappeared and the Overland
is operated by Great Southern Railway, but V-Line operates
a competitive service. One takes the train from Melbourne
to Bendigo and there transfers to a bus for the remainder
of the journey to Adelaide. It is a pleasant ride,
to be recommended, for one sees scenery through which
one would not normally pass on bus or train, although
the road is a little bumpy in parts. The journey takes
nearly 11½ hours and operates every day.
The second co-ordinated service operated by V-Line
is a Sydney to Adelaide service, but this is not as
much fun, as the timing is inconvenient. One takes
the night train at 20:43 from Sydney bound for Melbourne,
and alights at Albury at 3:54. A bus then conveys you
to Adelaide, arriving at 16:15. Thus it is a seven-hour
train journey, followed by a 12½ hour bus ride.
This service too operates every night, with the V-Line
buses using the Franklin Street Bus Terminal.
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