Made it to Perth! After stocking up on a significant amount of fruit and nuts for the train ride, turns out we're not allowed to take any of that sort of food over to neighboring states. Lest any of my snacks be wasted, I passed on 'real' meals and made meals of my trail mixes, granola bars, and fresh & dried fruit for three days (which turns out was fine as I wasn't missing out on anything gourmet in the diner car). My mission was successful - I finished it all before having to throw it in the quarantine buckets at our arrival.
But on the second day I did discover that the diner car had something else - people to talk to! While you couldn't just find an empty unassigned seat and sit down and start a conversation with the person sitting there (that would just be weird), you could sit down in an emty seat in the diner car and make good friends in ten mintues. In fact, I met a great couple that offered a place to stay and maybe even a small tour of northern New Zealand when I hop over there for a visit!
Got some great views from the train, and some not so great views. The sunrises were probably the best, and the rainbow we got early this morning was nice:
Can't say it was the most exciting train ride I've ever been on, but it was most definitely worth the experience. Of course I got a taste of wildlife too - after staring out the window for a bit I saw: kangaroos, wallabys, dingoes, an emu, camels, and of course sheep, cows, and horses. I would have to say I was most impressed by the camels; not because I saw them (really they were just dots on the horizon), but because the train conductors saw them and let us know through the loudspeakers. When they announced it, you could almost feel the train tilt a tad to the right (not really) as we all rushed to stare intently in the horizon to see them. Then slowly, after a few minutes, you can see the passengers start losing interest and people start wondering out loud if we missed them (and since there is nothing out there, it's impossible to fathom how you could miss it). But about fifteen minutes later (I had given up and gone to the diner car for coffee), there they were - half a dozen small dots on the horizon. How the heck did the conductors see that from so far away? Amazing.
And there were a couple stops along the way. I started in Sydney mid-afternoon, then stopped the next morning at 6:30am in Broken Hill and took a tour of the town. Then by late afternoon we were in Adelaide and had a good two hours or so there. I walked downtown (about a 90 minute adventure - it was good to be on my feet again), but was disappointed by the city. Mostly because nothing was open, as is bound to happen on Easter Sunday. I guess at some point I'll give Adelaide another chance. The river was pretty.
After Adelaide we had an early morning stop in Cook - population of four (used to have many more people and everything you'd expect in a small desert town, but a couple years ago they decided to close it down and only have a family maintain it as a watering stop for the train). On Monday we had an evening stop at a town called Kalgoolrie, little mining town, where I signed up for another tour since we had time to kill (and again, everything was closed so there was nothing to do there anyway). So glad I did too. Got to see the second biggest mine in the world (called the "SuperPit" - yeah!). It was so huge that all the trucks looked like tiny tonka trucks and you couldn't even see the people. Learned lots of fun facts about the city and its history too - Herbert Hoover lived there for some time (31st president of the US) - he worked in the gold mines.
Anyhow, now I'm in Perth (cityscape photo below - taken from Kings Park, biggest urban park in the world, much much bigger than Central Park).
Thanks to Paula (for putting me in touch), Jenny was waiting for me at the train station when I arrived and has been a lovely host. I was out and about getting a feel for Perth by noon today - so nice to stretch the legs. More about Perth & surrounding area in my next post. For now, I'll leave you with a picture of a common scene around these parts - a couple of blokes really excited to have found a nugget of gold. This taken in front of the Perth mint:
And hooray - per your requests (and just that I finally was able to find a place to upload it from my CD) here's a surfing photo!
But on the second day I did discover that the diner car had something else - people to talk to! While you couldn't just find an empty unassigned seat and sit down and start a conversation with the person sitting there (that would just be weird), you could sit down in an emty seat in the diner car and make good friends in ten mintues. In fact, I met a great couple that offered a place to stay and maybe even a small tour of northern New Zealand when I hop over there for a visit!
The Indain Pacific train that got me here:
Got some great views from the train, and some not so great views. The sunrises were probably the best, and the rainbow we got early this morning was nice:Can't say it was the most exciting train ride I've ever been on, but it was most definitely worth the experience. Of course I got a taste of wildlife too - after staring out the window for a bit I saw: kangaroos, wallabys, dingoes, an emu, camels, and of course sheep, cows, and horses. I would have to say I was most impressed by the camels; not because I saw them (really they were just dots on the horizon), but because the train conductors saw them and let us know through the loudspeakers. When they announced it, you could almost feel the train tilt a tad to the right (not really) as we all rushed to stare intently in the horizon to see them. Then slowly, after a few minutes, you can see the passengers start losing interest and people start wondering out loud if we missed them (and since there is nothing out there, it's impossible to fathom how you could miss it). But about fifteen minutes later (I had given up and gone to the diner car for coffee), there they were - half a dozen small dots on the horizon. How the heck did the conductors see that from so far away? Amazing.And there were a couple stops along the way. I started in Sydney mid-afternoon, then stopped the next morning at 6:30am in Broken Hill and took a tour of the town. Then by late afternoon we were in Adelaide and had a good two hours or so there. I walked downtown (about a 90 minute adventure - it was good to be on my feet again), but was disappointed by the city. Mostly because nothing was open, as is bound to happen on Easter Sunday. I guess at some point I'll give Adelaide another chance. The river was pretty.
After Adelaide we had an early morning stop in Cook - population of four (used to have many more people and everything you'd expect in a small desert town, but a couple years ago they decided to close it down and only have a family maintain it as a watering stop for the train). On Monday we had an evening stop at a town called Kalgoolrie, little mining town, where I signed up for another tour since we had time to kill (and again, everything was closed so there was nothing to do there anyway). So glad I did too. Got to see the second biggest mine in the world (called the "SuperPit" - yeah!). It was so huge that all the trucks looked like tiny tonka trucks and you couldn't even see the people. Learned lots of fun facts about the city and its history too - Herbert Hoover lived there for some time (31st president of the US) - he worked in the gold mines.
Anyhow, now I'm in Perth (cityscape photo below - taken from Kings Park, biggest urban park in the world, much much bigger than Central Park).
Thanks to Paula (for putting me in touch), Jenny was waiting for me at the train station when I arrived and has been a lovely host. I was out and about getting a feel for Perth by noon today - so nice to stretch the legs. More about Perth & surrounding area in my next post. For now, I'll leave you with a picture of a common scene around these parts - a couple of blokes really excited to have found a nugget of gold. This taken in front of the Perth mint:And hooray - per your requests (and just that I finally was able to find a place to upload it from my CD) here's a surfing photo!Okay fine, here's a clearer one, it's just not as exciting:
Yeah D, looking good up on that board!!
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