Come On, Ride The Train, Hey, Ride It, Woo Woo

It has been another exciting week in Australia. After attending both of my classes the first week back from break, I hopped on the train for Perth. The Indian Pacific runs from Sydney to Perth. Fortunately, I was only going to be on the train for two nights unlike those who started in Sydney and got an extra night. Don’t get me wrong, I am a huge fan of trains and decided to take this route to see some of the countryside. Unfortunately, I could only afford the student discounted day/night seat and not a room with a bed. That meant 40 hours semi-vertical.



At the train station that “I know I forgot something when I rushed out the door feeling” turned out to be right. I forgot my towel. I know this is shocking to any fans of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” but it is true. Luckily, I was able to acquire one on the train. With that problem settled, I was happy to be on the road or track in this case. The train left Adelaide just before sunset and before long it was dark outside, which meant not a lot to see on my scenic tour. For entertainment some people were playing cards, some people were drinking, some people were letting their children hassle other people, and finally, there was a movie playing. I opted for the movie and was hoping that I wouldn’t get burned with a terrible selection like on the bus to Bangkok. It turned out to be “Analyze That” the sequel to “Analyze This” both starring Robert DeNiro and Billy Crystal. I watched the movie and it was ok. I am sure that if I was anywhere other than stuck on a train with nothing to do that my opinion might differ. This is primarily because of my severe distaste for Billy Crystal. I am not sure why, but I have always found Billy Crystal to be terribly annoying. This is a little surprising because the list of things that bother me is pretty short.

1. Extreme heat/cold especially if humidity is in anyway involved.
2. Poisonous snakes that want to bite me. (especially if they are on a plane)
3. Celery
4. Billy Crystal
5. Nuclear War
   

One notable movie occurrence was that a pre-recorded message interrupted the sound to inform us of the exciting history behind what was apparently lying out in the dark nothingness that we could see from the window. This happened again in the movie the next day as well. (FYI – The other movie was “Stick It” starring Jeff Bridges and was something about gymnastics…it was a far fall from being “The Dude”)

After the movie, I wandered around the train for a little while and then decided to give sleep a try. Things were not looking good as I was in the isle seat without a neck pillow. For the next several hours I woke up from time to time with a very stiff neck or back depending how I had contorted myself in an attempt to find comfort and sleep. At around 2am this became even more difficult because the guy across the isle from me was snoring like nothing I have ever heard. Seriously, when I was on the live aboard boat at the Great Barrier Reef, the guy in the bunk above me snored loud enough that I banged the bottom of the bed. This however, made that seem like a whisper. As I sat there trying to get back to sleep, I pondered if I was some sort of travel masochist. Was I purposely searching out the most painful experiences for some reason?

With no chance of sleeping in my seat, I headed for the lounge car. It was 3:30 am and the lounge car was empty except for several inviting couches. Unfortunately we had been told that we could do almost anything in the lounge except sleep and that if we were found sleeping that we would be kicked out. Miraculously I heard the night watchmen come in and pre-emptively told him that I wasn’t sleeping just before he was going to boot me and then got 4 hours of sleep. I awoke to a lounge car filled with people several of whom I believe were jealous of the sleep I managed to get.

(These two photos show the seats and lounge area of the train. I took them from the Indian Pacific website and they dramatically overstate the appearance of and fun had by passengers on the train.)




Most of the day was spent watching the scenery go by. There wasn’t an amazing amount to see, so I got a little reading in as well.



We stopped around 10:00 in Cook (Population 4) for people’s sanity. The stop provided people with a chance to take photos and have a collective sigh of relief to live anywhere other than Cook. That said, it appeared that those who lived in Cook at least had a sense of humor based on their country club sign (see photo).

(Here is some video of what we passed on the ride. If you feel an overwhelming desire to take this train trip, I recommend sitting in your chair and watching these videos for 40 hours to see if you really want to do it.)

The rest of the day was spent reading, talking to fellow passengers, and hoping to see a kangaroo or anything for that matter. I kept crying wolf (or in this case kangaroo) and got a Canadian girl to look 4 times. The key is to look at point. For those of you who have bowled with me, this is similar to the “oh! your pin just dropped” look and point even though it didn’t. The main difference is that with kangaroos there are two options. First, the kangaroo could be laying in the shadow of a bush (more likely) or second, the kangaroo could be jumping in which case you need to move your finger up and down a little to really sell it. Eventually when we did see a couple Kangaroos our Canadian friend was in the shower. (The key is to look at the back of the video and generally in the middle.)

Around 7:30pm we pulled into a mining town named Kalgoorlie. Famed for its gold and described as the El Dorado of Australia by the pre-recorded message on the train, the town was not that hopping on a Friday evening. We did get to see one highlight of the town in the world’s tallest bin (trash can).

After our tour of Kalgoorlie, it was back on the train and I tried to get some sleep. With the person next to me and the people in front of me off the train, I was able to spin the seats around and lay diagonally across them with my backpack under my hip filling the gap between the seats. Surprisingly this worked quite well and I managed at least 6 hours of sleep. The morning brought a little different scenery as we were closing in on Perth.

I met in the lounge with my new train friends and we had a breakfast out of everything people had leftover. They are fairly serious in Australia about quarantine and not allowing you to bring unprocessed food across state lines. I have some childhood memories of a similar thing between Nevada and California, but they seem a little more into it here. So with all the food eaten or trashed, we got our bags together and prepared for arrival in Perth.

I will try to post about Perth today, but this seemed like plenty of writing for one post.

-Ben