I'm on a train

Oceania » Australia » South Australia
May 26th 2006

Published: August 7th 2006

Edit Blog Post

Jabe

Indian Pacific Railway

Today marked the start of my journey to Perth on the Indian Pacific Railway. This is one of 3 great (read - long) train journeys available in Australia. Having experienced many longish train journeys in India, and become fond of the rhythm and comfort of train travel (at least as opposed to buses), I was keen on seeing what Australia had to offer. Though the Indian Pacific runs from Sydney to Perth, I was only going to be doing the section from Adelaide to Perth - a mere 39 hours involving 2 nights on the train.

There are 3 classes of travel available on the Indian Pacific - you can either have an airplane-style chair, or a 2 person cabin, or a 2 person cabin with superior service. Though Red Kangaroo is the designation used for the first 2 classes (and Gold Kangaroo for the best one), the Red Kangaroo cabin is about 3 times the cost of the Red Kangaroo chair. Since even the chair is hardly cheap (you can fly for cheaper), I assumed that the only people using the train would be holidaymakers, with flying being both a quicker and cheaper option. As it turned out, the

Nullarbor Plain

At 10AM. Or 2PM. Or 5PM ...

attraction of the landscape seemed to be more of a motivating factor.

With a new state awaiting me in the not too distant future, it was time for a haircut before I departed. It turned out to be the shortest one I've had since about 1996, when I attempted to impersonate a convict. Fortunately I had none of the trauma associated with the last foreign haircut I'd had (see - Operation Barber Orchha in my India blog).

Due to space restrictions mentioned in the train bumf, I knew that I did not have an appropriate bag to take on board, with my rucksack being too big and my shoulder bag too small, so I invested in an Indian Pacific branded sports bag, which would also function as a memento of my trip. I worry that I may be about to demonstrate the backpacker equivalent of the law that nature abhors a vacuum, i.e. if you buy another bag then you'll end up filling it completely.

Boarding began at about 6PM. The cabins alternate on either side of the train, producing a serpentine corridor that's even less easy to negotiate when the train is moving. The cabin is

The dining car

As modelled by Jim

very snug indeed. There are 2 opposite-facing seats next to the double-layered glass window, which convert into the lower bunk. The upper bunk essentially just pulls down from above once the lower has been set up. There are 2 short thin "wardrobes", a miniature luggage rack that would perhaps be of use to the Travelocity garden gnome, a mirror and fold-away wash basin, and a small space for manoeuvring. It's fine if both people are seated or are in their bunks, but otherwise one person has to leave the room in order to prevent gridlock.

It initially looked as though I was going to get a cabin to myself, but a late reservation by a couple meant that another solo traveller was evicted from his cabin and joined me in mine. This was Jim, a retired Kiwi. Fortunately we hit it off well, even when I mistakenly accused him of being an Aussie, and spent most of the trip chatting.

With space being at such a premium in the cabin, it was significantly more comfortable to sit either in the dining car (in a sort of art deco American diner style) or the lounge car. Both of these

Superpit at Kalgoorlie

were shared with the denizens of chair class (though not the Gold Kangaroo riders, who had their own separate facilities).

As I discovered on the first night, the bunks are very narrow so there's not much room for tossing and turning. Coupled with the less-than-soothing motion of the train, this made for a broken night's sleep. Fortunately it wasn't as if I had vast amounts of exercise planned for the following day.

The first excitement of the morning was a 30 minute stop in the "town" of Cook. Cook boasts a population of 4, though this was temporarily down to 3 due to one of the resident couples being away in Port Augusta, but a friend was visiting the remaining couple in order to keep the numbers up. The town had originally been important enough to warrant its own (scrub) 9-hole golf course, but since the privatisation of the railways (or something) its importance had dwindled to the point where most of the buildings were now unoccupied. The mind boggles as to what the 4 residents get up to for entertainment.

Back on the train, we soon entered the Nullarbor Plain. Taking its name from a flawed

Indian Pacific Railway

translation of the Latin for "no trees", which is misleading anyway due to the fact that the occasional tree does punctuate the boundless scrub, it is a generally bare but impressively monotonous plot of land. It also contains the world's longest entirely straight stretch of railway track, at about 478km long. Despite that, the ride was not smooth and the handwriting in my journal gives the impression I was under the influence while scribbling. Though there were rumours that we might see wild camels, or perhaps the occasional fruitcake riding a motorbike along the parallel maintenance road, the landscape threw up nothing of such interest, and you could be forgiven for thinking that the train hadn't really moved, as the view out of the window was the same from morning until afternoon.

Unfortunately, with the windows being double thickness and rather grimy, I had as little success taking good photos through the glass as in India.

Conversations with Jim took up much of the day, and he gave a very favourable account of New Zealand, which I do intend visiting before 2006 is over. He was also not the first person on this trip to have seen more

Indian Pacific Railway

of the UK than I have, which prompted the thought in my own head of why I'm travelling half way round the world to see things when there are places 20 miles away from Saltburn that I've never seen. I suppose it's the assumption that anywhere close to home must obviously be less exotic than somewhere further away, not to mention the idea that things in your neighbourhood can, if necessary, be seen by Zimmerframe when you're 90 years old, whereas hostelling around Australia may be a physical impossibility later in life. I do find it intriguing though that people can view going to the UK with the same excitement that I viewed coming to Australia.

Crossing the border with Western Australia required us to put our watches back 1.5 hours, and in the evening we pulled into Kalgoorlie. We were to be here for several hours, mainly so as to arrive in Perth at a sociable hour of tomorrow morning. Kalgoorlie was the site of Western Australia's first major gold find and is now home to the Superpit, a vast opencast mine from which gold, nickel, and even diamonds are extracted. I'd signed up for a coach tour

Down the pan

of the town and its environs, but it lost a little due to being conducted in darkness. The commentary was so jam-packed with facts and figures that after a while they all began to simply wash over me, though it was amusing to hear buildings built in the 1890s described as "old". Many of the buildings from that era have been preserved, even if their current function is different, and the place had something of the look of a town from a Wild West film-set.

The highlight of the tour was definitely the Superpit itself, which even by night was clearly enormous. It's currently about 300m deep and is expected to reach twice that before it's mined out in about 2017. The site used to consist of many individual claims, but it was realised that the most economically viable way of mining this particular seam was to consolidate them into one, a process started by one Alan Bond (of America's Cup fame, and some-time resident of Perth Jail). The mining produces a mass of gold that's only a minute fraction of the tons of earth dug up to find it, but it's a worthwhile endeavour because of the current

The view from the upper bunk

high price of gold. This is just one example of successful mining activity in Western Australia - with the discovery and exploitation of many other mineral resources across the state, it's currently a boom time for those involved in the industry (e.g. truck drivers with little experience can earn A$100K per year = 40K quid).

The guide herself had worked in the Superpit as a truck driver, and impressed upon us the stringent safety precautions in place in the mine, e.g. if you fail to stop at a Stop sign then you're immediately fired, you're breathalysed every morning and ANY reading at all means you have to go home for the day (2 positive readings and you're out), etc. The rationale for this is that the goal is to have the pit running 24/7, and if production has to stop for any avoidable reason then money is lost. In addition, apparently each truck weighs 200 tonnes so even a gentle nudge with one has the potential to cause major damage.

After the Superpit, we cruised past another of Kalgoorlie's famous areas, namely its red-light district on Hay Street. Prostitution occupies a hazy position in Western Australian law, and

The town of Cook

a policy of tolerance is in force in Kalgoorlie. One of the brothels conducts guided tours during the daytime, which bring in more money than the night-time customers (though presumably the services offered are slightly different).

Another titillating Western Australian institution that's alive and well in Kalgoorlie is the "skimpy". Though the word can be used to refer to either a type of bar, or the sort of lady who works behind the bar in such an establishment, the gist is that in a skimpy bar you will find one or more skimpies dressed skimpily, who are on hand to serve you a pint of your favourite beer while you wonder where to look. I suppose the nearest equivalent is what would be called a bikini bar in the US - I can't even think of an equivalent in the UK. We passed several skimpies with their weekly list of skimpies advertised on a chalk board outside - interestingly they were all identified by name only, as though patrons of a skimpy bar were there for the conversation.

With the tour over, but a couple of hours still remaining before the train began its final haul to Perth,

The loco

Jim and I repaired to a non-skimpy bar for a beer or two, where we were served by what I'm assuming is called a surly.

That night on the train, I almost accomplished the miraculous feat of climbing out of my bunk, disappearing off to the toilet, then climbing back in again without waking up Jim. Unfortunately, during the last manoeuvre in the sequence, I trod on him.

The following morning, with our arrival in Perth fast approaching, I tried out one of the train showers. In keeping with the rest of the accommodation, it was cramped, sufficiently so that I ricked my neck when I accidentally head-butted the ceiling, but it did have hot water (though confusingly it came out of the cold tap).

It was a bit of a shock to actually arrive in Perth, having been cooped up in the train for nearly 2 days. I must admit I was a little disappointed by the journey overall, as the thrills per minute quotient was lower than I would've hoped - in particular, the landscape just didn't have enough variety to hold one's attention for 39 hours. However the clear blue sky and crisp air