The dear, little, mature-age Dennis Crusader bus beetled busily around the 11-stop circuit, taking about 15 minutes. During our lunchtime odyssey 24 passengers (not counting the two press patrons) hopped on and/or hopped off the vaunted "Hop on/hop off service."

The new Loop service links CBD spots such as the City Bus Station, Canberra Centre, Braddon precinct, Northbourne Avenue, the Australian National University and New Acton precinct.

We chose a lunchtime because Transport Canberra has reported that in its first week of operation the service had recorded 1223 "boardings" (a word that for this reporter conjures of thoughts of pirates swarming on to a treasure galleon) with the peak boardings happening between 12pm and 2pm and between 5pm and 6pm.

We pirates of the press boarded at a London Circuit stop and found a group of five cheerful women, workmates, among those already on board.

"This is our first time using it, and we're going out to lunch in Braddon," Liza Kelley of Casey enthused as our sprightly omnibus hared around the corner of London Circuit and churned down Akuna Street.

"We all work in Acton on Marcus Clarke street, at the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources. We [looked at the map of the service] and we thought it would be a good thing for us to use to go to the shops and to go to lunch."

I told the bevy that the ACT Liberals have criticised the service for only covering so compact an area. They, the Liberals, have promised a far grander Loop (theirs would embrace the National Museum and the Parliamentary Triangle) if we sweep them to power at October's Assembly elections. The Liberals say the present circuit really only links places that are anyway within walking distance. But our workmate lunchgoers thought that time was of the essence at lunch time. They thought the dashing little bus would always deliver them to shops and to lunch far quicker than Shanks' Pony could.

Certainly the wriggle-on that our bus took on Tuesday (how we bustled up Mort Street and down Northbourne Avenue!) suggests that Transport Canberra is making urgency part of the service's attraction. Transport Canberra boasts that the bus completes the Loop "every 10 minutes" but we took closer to (a still-sizzling) 15 minutes. This was through no fault of the driver who saw to it that our loop was done at a skedaddle.

To some small extent our Tuesday excursion proved to be a fruitless loop. So for example no one boarded us at the ANU residences' stop at Rimmer Street. The government has high Free Loop hopes of this stop because 5000 students live nearby.

But Transport Minister Meegan Fitzharris has said that she is confident that as the helter-skelter City Loop service (it runs from 7am to 7pm, Monday to Friday) becomes better known it will become very popular.

How dear will it have become to Canberrans' hearts by October? Then, with transport a key issue (a colleague finds both sides of ACT politics making "tit-for-tat announcements" on transport) it will compete with the Liberals' promise of a longer and more liberal Loop.