A Little Shade

Even though every time I open the app it says it has stopped working before it opens, NT Bus Tracker has become my best friend in the Territory. It tells me where the nearest bus stop is and which buses are arriving and when. Initially I was using the timetables provided on the website, and at the bus stops themselves, but this app kills the competition. With its assistance, I have been successfully navigating my way around Darwin with very little down time waiting for a ride.

However, it is on the subject of waiting to which I now turn my attention and ergo, your attention. In the hierarchy of bus stops, there are major stops and minor stops. The former appear on the timetables, the latter do not, but they are all on the app.

The major bus stops have seats and shelters which is very nice because it's hot here. I mean the weather is hot or hotter, and the sun invariably beats down upon the earth, and all of us who wander it, during the dry season. (The benefits of shelters in the wet season are potentially less significant for obvious reasons.) The minor stops have a sign. That's it. No shelter from the sun and nowhere to plant one's sweaty bottom.

Occasionally the dear little minors have trees which furnish the steaming traveller with shade, but many, dare I say most, have no shade and no seats.

And that is the extent of my problems in life at the moment. How blessed am I.