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Published: March 8th 2008
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So it was time on Sunday to make the final journey before settling in Perth all that stood in our way was a short 40 hour train journey.
We were told we could walk to the station then someone else said get a taxi, I don't know why they suggested walking considering its a 15 minute drive down a dual carriageway. So another helpful hint always get a second opinion or I think we would still have been walking. We had to check in our backpacks & could only take on with us a small bag for the next two days. I'm am sure the scales were lying but to James smugness his bag came in at 23kg a gain of 8kg (He's now regretting buying the Australian fish book) Worse still mine was a mere 17kg, I can see him now trying to sneak things into my bag! He will be so lucky, the bags are well & truely at bursting point. I think it may be time to send another package home, on top of the two which are already on there way by sea mail, they should be there in three months.
There was definetly
a divide at the station a bit like the North South divide on one side you had the golden oldies & on the other the backpacker roughing it in cattle class. We got invited out to the train to meet the crew the Gold class passengers had 12 staff looking after them, we had one.
They had a little sing song welcome before we boarded, obviously as we were in the cheaper seats we had to walk the entire distance of the train all 868 metres to get to our seats. We were then given a brief talk by the night manager (a night manager who confirmed all suspicions about night managers). He explained how the toilets & shower worked, told us we weren't under any circumstances to sleep in the lounge carriage, he then showed us how to pour a glass of water, drink the water & bin the cup & finally told us again how we weren't to sleep in the lounge carriage, then finally we were off.
We quickly were out of the suburbs of Adelaide & into the countryside, by the time the sun was setting we were only seeing houses very few &
far between. Train travel turned out to be much more civilised than we thought it would be & we ended up with a bottle of wine watching the world go by.
Sleeping on the train turned out to be easier than we thought it would be (perhaps the wine helped). We were told the train was 2 hours behind schedule due to freight trains during the night so by the time we made it to our first stop we had been on the train for 17 & a half hours. We only had 20 minutes at Cook which was long enough there wasnt much to see apart from about 5 houses, dust roads & a falling down school. Cook is over 600 miles from Adelaide and 700 miles from Perth. Bear in mind that there isn’t anything in between these two points and you get an idea of how remote this place is. It was qucikly back on to the train for the next 10 hours. During this time we went over the Nullarbor Plain, which included the straightest section of railway in the world (478km). You could see nothing for miles & this went on for hours. To
begin with there are a few salt scrubs around then hardly nothing. It is probably the remotest part of Australia that we are going to experience. It was just us & the train, we passed through a town which had only four people living in it, the train brings the supplies twice a week. We stopped for a couple of minutes for a guy in a truck to deliver something to the train, must be strange considering the staff on the train are the only people that these people see each week.
As we approached Kalgoorlie the harsh salt scrub changed to charred skeltons of trees where a bush fire had obviously been through the area. The trees has a somewhat spooky feel to them, but it was nice to have a change of view. We finally arrived into Kalgoorlie at around 9pm that night, it was nice to get off the train & be able to walk further than 3 carriages on the train, the sleeping carriage, day carriage & the diner carriage. We booked to go on the tour of Kalgoorlie & to go to the superpit. Our bus driver could only be described as odd with
a strange fasicination with murders, mining & the famous brothels in Kalgoorlie which he seemed to know alot about. After telling us murder stories & pointing out the streets we couldnt take the bus up due to the high chances of rocks being thrown at us we went to the superpit. A gigantic whole in the ground 3.5km long, 1.5km wide & 360 mtrs deep. The trucks look like ants moving around in the mine, the wheels on the trucks alone cost $1m + which gives you an idea of the size of them. The time in Kalgoorlie had been cut down to make up the lost two hours. So just time for him to show us the brothels even if it had meant missing the train I think he was going to show us. As the other buses returned to the station we were taken to the brothels. It was then back onto the train, it was quickly "lights out" as we started the last leg into Perth.
It was very strange waking & seeing the likes of Subway & streetlight after seeing nothing for a whole day. We eventually made it into Perth, 40 hours later.
We were both very pleased that we made our way to Perth by the Indian Pacfic. We saw sights we will never see again, you really get to appreciate the size & remoteness of Australia. If we were to do it again I think we would blow the budget & have a sleeper cabin. I would like to go on the Ghan but I don't think James is going to be too keen to see a train for a while. The biggest difference since leaving Adelaide is that James is now a non smoker & still remains so today 7 weeks later!
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