Indian Pacific from Adelaide to Perth 2655km

Thursday 10th November

The evening began with an excellent dinner at Jolley's Boat House on the South Bank of the river in Adelaide, just a few hundred metres from the Ibis hotel. Started with cold ham and cheese followed by barramundi and a desert of a massive Pavlova with passion fruit sauce. Chatting to a couple originally from England, now living in Geelong and planning retirement. On my other side were an American couple from upstate New York now contemplating exile after Donald Trump’s election.  Most of the passengers are middle aged and retired couples, very white middle class.  No back-packers, which isn’t surprising considering the cost.  After dinner we had a bus to the train terminal where I walked almost the length of the train and gave up counting carriages, but it's long! Another passenger told me he counted 27. Now I know why it doesn’t use the main railway station. Found my single cabin (B2) which is similar to ones I encountered on Amtrak 25 years ago. Learnt later that the carriages were built in Australia in the early 1970's under licence from Budd in the USA. There is a single seat which converts to a berth and they manage to fit a folding wash basin in. Toilets and shower are down the corridor.  We left on time at 9.40 pm and Carlya, the train attendant, came round to explain the meal and other arrangements. The train clocks go back 1.5 hours tonight; the train follows its own time so my phone is confused.

Went along to the lounge car where I had a couple of glasses of GSM wine in the lounge chatting to another couple, also originally from England but settled in Australia for a long time.

Indian Pacific in Adelaide

Lounge Car.
Has everyone else gone to bed? 

Folding Wash Basin: Now you see it

Now you don't

Friday 11th November.

Woke up ridiculously early and headed into breakfast when the restaurant car opened at 6.30. I was greeted by the restaurant attendant who, when I told him my cabin was B2, instantly quipped back “Are you thinking what I'm thinking B1?  I think I am B2”, leaving me totally mystified. He followed up with “Bananas in Pyjamas?” obviously expecting that phrase to explain everything but we looked at each other with total mutual incomprehension on both our faces. Luckily the couple behind me explained that B2 is a character in a children’s programme “Bananas in Pyjamas” which all Australian’s are familiar with.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQvFnSIIuHE

Breakfast was fruit parfait followed by bacon, eggs, mushrooms and toast, sharing a table with K and S, Geordies who have been living in Australia for over 30 years and appear to be full time travellers; they will be picking up a cruise in Perth to New Zealand. Also at the breakfast table was B who is also doing the train journey in conjunction with a cruise.

Outside the scenery was how I expected the outback to be and I can see how the colours of the grey-green eucalyptus and little bushes inspired the fabric for the seats in the Canberra while the red earth inspired the upper house. As the morning progressed, the trees became sparser and the land flatter until we entered the featureless Nullarbor Plain.

Outback

Nullarbor Plain

Lunch was chicken breast followed by trifle and a cup of coffee, sharing the table with a father and son. The father used to be in the Australian Air Force and was stationed at Butterworth in Malaysia. At 1230 we stopped at Cook, a town of only four permanent residents which serves to provide water for the train and a place to change drivers. By the time I had walked the length of the train, with a few detours, the train attendants were getting us back on the train again which was frustrating since the train didn't move for another hour. This is supposed to be the longest dead-straight railway track in the world 478km. Think the Nullarbor is even more featureless than the steppe in Mongolia. At 1530 had a cup of coffee in the lounge and the scenery was still exactly the same yellowish tussocky grass with grey-green scrubby bushes, totally flat to the horizon on both sides. I dread to think of the despair of the explorers crossing it on foot or horseback, no doubt hoping to find water, arable land or any feature at all. Amazingly, there are regular solar powered cell phone masts at intervals along the track.

Train in Cook

Straight Track for 478km

Later in the afternoon we passed some cows and the scenery changed slightly with more yellow grass and less of the grey green bushes.  Passed several freight trains with double deck containers. Guess they don’t need to worry about height restrictions since we haven't gone under a bridge all day.

More of the same until sometime after 7pm when we stopped at Rawlinna, once a small town serving the railway but now just a huge sheep station covering an area of 8000 square kilometres. There we had dinner out in the open on trestle tables, roast lamb, roasted vegetables, baked potatoes and plenty of wine. Desert was a sweet chocolate affair. We had a singer/ guitarist serenading us, who was much better than might be expected singing a good selection of songs including some from Leonard Cohen who died yesterday aged 82. I discovered his songs at Exeter as a student and I have loved them ever since. A few months ago I read his novel "Beautiful Losers" earlier this year and decided that he made a good choice to stick to song writing, although many literary reviewers raved about it. One of the men at our table was an Englishman with a northern accent who looked familiar but I couldn’t place him. And I encountered another couple of Americans aghast at Trump's election.  Back on the train sometime before 9pm and we started trundling west again.

Train at Rawlinna

Rawlinna

Dinner at Rawlinna

Saturday 12th November

Woke up just before sunrise to a landscape with trees. It’s still pancake flat and arid but more like the outback as I imagine it. Another brilliant blue cloudless sky.

Trees again!

Had breakfast at 7 with K and S again. Passed several large salt flats and suddenly the bush gave way to huge wheat fields, some of which were being harvested. Also another crop, the same golden colour as the wheat but more like a small shrub than a grass or cereal.

Wheat field

At 0920 we stopped in Meredin for about forty minutes. It’s a railway junction and we were parked at the side of marshalling yards where we waited until after 10. Later passed a large blue lake on the left hand side and several salt lakes. For a while we were running parallel to a road and a pipeline, which I later discovered supplies the mining area of Kalgoorlie with water from Perth.

Had lunch with S and B as we passed through the scenic Avon Valley before entering golden grasslands and then along dual gauge track through the suburbs of Perth, arriving at East Perth Terminal at 3pm where J and M were waiting for me.