Darlinghurst: Public Transport: Village to Village Bus

If you have been reading My Darling Darlinghurst for a while, you may know about my passion for the 311 Bus; that wonder on wheels that glides through the suburb like a phantom. Sometimes you see it, sometimes you don't, sometimes you can hail it, but most of the time it never appears and you are left wondering if the 311 ever existed at all. 

But while I love the 311 Mystery Bus, recently a new people-mover has been vying for my patronage. The Village to Village Bus runs through the neighbourhood on Thursdays and Fridays. It begins its route down at the Mary Macdonald Activity Centre on Bourke Street, Woolloomooloo and then moves up through Kings Cross, Darlinghurst and on to Central Station and Redfern.

So it traverses much the same route as the 311 but unlike the 311, the Village to Village Bus costs absolutely nothing for a ride. Yes, it's hard to believe, but some things in life are still free. 

So now, at the end of the week while going to work, instead of seeing this:

I see this:

It's a much cosier ride and the driver is really chatty. Because it is a small bus, whenever I catch it, I feel like I am part of some weird church group or school student going off on a day trip to the museum. It definitely has that community bus vibe about it. The bus takes the community route too, stopping at St Vincent's Hospital:

The Village to Village Bus first began spinning its wheels through the streets of Sydney in 2007, with a limited route between Redfern, the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital on the outskirts of Newtown, and inner city Glebe. 

It is run by the South Sydney Community Transport group and funded by the City of Sydney council as a means for residents without cars to connect to shops, health care and other services. 

The Woolloomooloo to Redfern service, which I catch, was established in 2008 and last year they extended the route to include Onslow and Billyard avenues in Elizabeth Bay. 

The council committed a further grant of $36,000 in the last budget to keep the service going. But I imagine they won't continue the funding unless people catch it, so if you happen to see it cruising along, make sure you flag it down and go for a free ride. 

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Village to Village Bus

Every Thursday and Friday

Woolloomooloo to Redfern

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TIMETABLE 

(use the times as a guide to the stops in between)

TRIP ONE:

8am: Mary Macdonald Activity Centre 

8.15am: St Vincent's Hospital

8.45am: Poets Corner, Redfern

TRIP TWO:

9.45am: Mary Macdonald Activity Centre

10am: St Vincent's Hospital

10.30am: Poets Corner, Redfern

TRIP THREE:

11.30am: Mary Macdonald Activity Centre 

11.45am: St Vincent's Hospital

12.15pm: Poets Corner, Redfern

TRIP FOUR:

1.30pm: Mary Macdonald Activity Centre 

1.45pm: St Vincent's Hospital

2.15pm: Poets Corner, Redfern

TRIP FIVE:

3.15pm: Mary Macdonald Activity Centre 

3.30pm: St Vincent's Hospital

4pm: Poets Corner, Redfern

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The Village to Village bus stops at most of the usual bus stops.

There are also four trips in the reverse direction. 

Timetables are available from the bus and from the council's website here.

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www.ssct.org.au

Darlinghurst: Street Art: Cupco

Loitering around the Bourke Street badlands in Woolloomooloo and Darlinghurst today, these colourful characters caught my eye. They look like some bent, Japanese comic book heroes and monsters, and there were posters of them all the way along the street. I like to think of the pair above as Three-Eyed Web Man and Twin-Pocket Geek.

The chap above would have to be The Crab Monster.

These two look like Redneck One and Redneck Two.

You may have noticed the word CUPCO in large capital letters beneath each character and you may have thought this was just another plastic-cup promotion stunt.

But no, a genuine artist is behind these posters and the only thing he is selling is felt dolls, which look like his mad characters, and have detachable heads. He's a bloody genius. I have a secret fondness for dolls and now I want one of Luke Temby's hand-made friends. He even offers a custom-made doll service where you can have a felt character made in your likeness.

Temby, who is in his late 30s, was inspired to make his wacky dolls during a five-year stint in Japan. He arrived back in Australia, with his own living doll, wife Mayumi, and set about building a doll empire of more than 100 pieces.

Temby has made dolls of Osama Bin Laden, female suicide bombers, Jesus, Satan, Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, Joan of Arc, the multi-armed Hindu goddess Kali and former standover man turned author Mark Chopper Read.

He has also held a couple of solo shows at the Damien Minton Gallery in Redfern, in inner-Sydney, where in 2007 the doll of Hubbard - being shot out of a felt volcano - was listed for sale at $850 and dolls of the Pope and the Queen sold for $950 each. Joan of Arc being burned at the stake - while listening to The Smiths on her walkman - sold for $850.

I rather fancy the Suicide Angels, which are limited to an edition of ten, and are relatively inexpensive at $350.

Temby lives in Summer Hill, in Sydney's inner-west, so I'm guessing it was one of his minions - or a fan who requested free stickers through his website - that pasted these colourful posters up around Darlinghurst.