I'm on the road again – well, on the rails again at least. On Monday I caught the slow train from Canberra to Sydney, and today I’ve woken up in Surry Hills. I’m enjoying my days in Sydney – after all, I did live here for twelve and a half years. I’m mainly here to see the Yolngu Power exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW, which finishes next week, but I’m also using the trip to see to other business.
It started badly when on the morning I left I tried to set the combination on the brand new suitcases I’d bought on sale and never used. The reset was a bit sluggish and I managed to lock the suitcase with everything inside it. Despite manually trying every one of the 999 possible combinations on the four hour train trip, I had no success.
When I arrived in Sydney I walked to a tiny down-at-heel hole in the wall called the Suitcase Repair Centre which was stacked with dilapidated suitcases of every variety. There they took five minutes to pick the lock by feeling when the tumblers clicked into place. They didn’t even charge me. I was hugely relieved – but it doesn’t make you confident about the security of your luggage.