With only a week or two (depending on your travel plans) to go before people start leaving for Melbourne, questions are being asked. Yesterday Jay Lake inquired about mobile phone rental, as a result of which I discovered that the Vodafone phone rental store in Melbourne airport, which many of us used in 1999 and was still there last year, has now closed. Thankfully there are plenty of other options. Huge thanks to Donna Maree Hanson who responded to my Twitter plea and posted a lot of useful information on Jay’s blog.

The other question that everyone will be asking is how to get to the hotel from the airport. Don’t get a cab unless you have a big group, it will be at least AU$50. The convention has just put out PR#4 (download here) and they mention the Skybus service, which is only AU$26 return. However, that drops you at the Southern Cross railway station, which is 5 minutes walk from the convention center, possibly more if you have a lot of luggage and don’t know where you are going. A promising alternative is the VHA Shuttle service. If you book in advance it is a door-to-door car service and cheaper than the bus.