14th February -Indian Pacific train to Adelaide

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We arose at 07:00, we had a reasonable nights sleep on the move. I was on the top bunk, with Di down below. We decided to just have a quick swill and shower after breakfast. I could tell that Di was not fully awake when she ordered “The Great American Breakfast” instead of “The Great Australian Breakfast” the waiter look quite confused!

Catching up on my blog and Di reading, it was soon lunchtime – and time to eat again!!

We had a brief stop in Cook, which had once been a thriving community with Schools, Hospital etc. But as the Railway work moved away, so did the people and it is now home to only a handful of people. It is one of the most isolated communities being 1,100 km from Adelaide and 1,500 km from Perth.

This place is vast! The scenery varies "slightly, but the feeling of "remoteness" is always there. Initially it is wheat fields that have been harvested. Then dense trees - I guess this is "the bush". Then smaller bushes, and sometimes sand similar to desert. In some locations we also saw the dark red soil that is synonymous with Australia.
We have seen very little wild life on the two days, I thought that the odd kangaroo would have made an appearance - where the hell is "Skippy"?. We saw some hawks that could have been Kites? , which hovered over the bush. we also saw four pink and grey Galah (which is like a Cockatoo) over dinner one night, but that was about it!

The train is good the Dining car and the food is brilliant. The Cabins are OK but the toilet/shower facilities are a bit cramped. The Indian Pacific is one of the older trains, now 40 years old. I have been told that the Ghan train that goes up to Darwin is a lot newer.

Dinner is early tonight about 17:30. We put our watches back 1 hour last night and we will set our watch back a further 1 1/2 hours this evening to be on Adelaide. Another nice meal, most of the time we share tables, and the majority of meal times we have been lucky to get an Australian, so we get more of an information about Australia and what is going on, the people tend to be so friendly.

We decided to turn in early tonight as breakfast is at 06:15am tomorrow morning, and we arrive in Adelaide at 07:20a.m.

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