Thomas The Tanked Engine
The centre of Australia is truly a desolate, empty place. It's probably a good thing that the Not-So-Mighty One (my bike) conked out where it did as if it had done so along the way it would have been curtains for me.
After Albany I got back to Perth by bus which took only 6 hours; a small trip. This was along the same road that had brought me down and it did seem shorter going back. I stayed in Perth for a couple more days before embarking on my train journey across the Nulaboor plain by Indian Pacific Railway.
Now I have read Bryson's "Down Under" and if I earned the sort of money he gets in royalties then I would have traveled first class (or Gold Kangaroo Class, if you please) too. But I don't. So I didn't. I traveled Fourth Class Baggage instead which still weighed in at a rather hefty $300 or so. I thought I'd be brave. I thought I could take it like a man.
At the station in Perth I got onto the train and located my seat. The interior looked like a BR cast-off from the mid 1970s with green walls, dim lights, and a finish that reminded me of my old commuter slam-doors in London. The seats were wide but they had packed us in so I shared a small bubble of space with a man who breathed through his mouth and didn't say a lot. About 30 seconds after leaving Perth I cracked and decided that I was not going to make it alive. Two and a half days on this train like this. Dear God.
Fortunately for me the train was half empty before Adelaide so I managed to change to an empty row which was a lifesaver, or so I thought. Walking around the train absorbing the stale communist-era atmosphere I got to the diner car and the lounge car where I ended up spending a lot of my time. This was all okay, sitting relaxing with a beer watching the landscape scrape by at a whopping 100 kmh in between interminable stops to allow freight to pass through. Most of the railway is single track with lay bys so passengers need to give way to freight. Our longest stop like this was a couple of hours I think. But once we cleared the valleys of Western Australia and got into the proper outback you realise that this place is truly empty. I looked up from my book to see a landscape almost the same as what greeted the Viking Mars landers: red, rocky, and dusty all the way to the horizon in every direction. I'd look up again from the book an hour later and it would be the same. The following morning it was the same. The tallest things as far as you could see were no taller than about 12 inches and those were the small plants.
As evening fell I gazed at the sunset then my sadistic captors put on the piped music. Bastards they were, there was no volume control for the cabins and it was loud in all the cars, including the diner. Michael Bolton, Celine Dion, and (mercifully) The Avengers TV Theme tune. Why they did this I don't know. It's probably to keep us third-classers in our place, if not our minds.
Delirious by now I decided to seek shelter in an unserviced and smelly carriage towards the rear of the train. This meant that the lights never got switched off and the smokers had to wander through it to get to the Smokers' Sarcophagus at the back of the train. There was also no music and no rumble of air-conditioning. As it was cool anyway this did not matter and the place became mine, and a few others', sanctuary for the rest of the trip away from the Guantanamo up front.
The rest of the journey passed slowly with one scheduled stop in an outback "settlement" called Cook. Population: 3 people, 10 goats, and 3,000,000 flies.
The Outback fly is the strangest thing. They are everywhere and as soon as you leave your vehicle they start to buzz you incessantly, as if they were trying to drink from your eyeballs. You swat, wail, gnash your teeth and they obstinately refuse to settle down or be squashed. Then, after about 30 mins of this they all settle down on your back where they just sit and do nothing. They do not bite, they do not walk around on you, they do not do those wriggly things that flies do with their legs. They just sit and travel with you. Even away from civilisation and livestock in the middle of the desert they are still there in their hundreds. I have no idea where they come from, where their larvae develop or what they eat. They probably just eat tourists.
After staring at Cook for 40 mins we got back in the Iron Coffin for the final 3 lightyear trip along unbending rails towards Adelaide. This stretch was actually 450km without a single bend, one of the longest in the world. I believe that the road is similar. This is why I don't think that the trip by bike is feasible. Even if I had a bike that could make the trip, my mind would go soft first. The roads are straight, there are rest stops every 200km or so, there are petrol stations a similar distance apart. In all, there's really nothing to see; it is really an empty country when you get to the middle. As an example I believe that there is a cattle station out here that is about the same size as Belgium. Yikes.
So I finally arrived in Adelaide to meet my friends there. I could look forward to a proper bed, good food, and a couple of decent road trips by car and camper up into the more green parts of South Australia.
Next time I'm flying.
After Albany I got back to Perth by bus which took only 6 hours; a small trip. This was along the same road that had brought me down and it did seem shorter going back. I stayed in Perth for a couple more days before embarking on my train journey across the Nulaboor plain by Indian Pacific Railway.
Now I have read Bryson's "Down Under" and if I earned the sort of money he gets in royalties then I would have traveled first class (or Gold Kangaroo Class, if you please) too. But I don't. So I didn't. I traveled Fourth Class Baggage instead which still weighed in at a rather hefty $300 or so. I thought I'd be brave. I thought I could take it like a man.
At the station in Perth I got onto the train and located my seat. The interior looked like a BR cast-off from the mid 1970s with green walls, dim lights, and a finish that reminded me of my old commuter slam-doors in London. The seats were wide but they had packed us in so I shared a small bubble of space with a man who breathed through his mouth and didn't say a lot. About 30 seconds after leaving Perth I cracked and decided that I was not going to make it alive. Two and a half days on this train like this. Dear God.
Fortunately for me the train was half empty before Adelaide so I managed to change to an empty row which was a lifesaver, or so I thought. Walking around the train absorbing the stale communist-era atmosphere I got to the diner car and the lounge car where I ended up spending a lot of my time. This was all okay, sitting relaxing with a beer watching the landscape scrape by at a whopping 100 kmh in between interminable stops to allow freight to pass through. Most of the railway is single track with lay bys so passengers need to give way to freight. Our longest stop like this was a couple of hours I think. But once we cleared the valleys of Western Australia and got into the proper outback you realise that this place is truly empty. I looked up from my book to see a landscape almost the same as what greeted the Viking Mars landers: red, rocky, and dusty all the way to the horizon in every direction. I'd look up again from the book an hour later and it would be the same. The following morning it was the same. The tallest things as far as you could see were no taller than about 12 inches and those were the small plants.
As evening fell I gazed at the sunset then my sadistic captors put on the piped music. Bastards they were, there was no volume control for the cabins and it was loud in all the cars, including the diner. Michael Bolton, Celine Dion, and (mercifully) The Avengers TV Theme tune. Why they did this I don't know. It's probably to keep us third-classers in our place, if not our minds.
Delirious by now I decided to seek shelter in an unserviced and smelly carriage towards the rear of the train. This meant that the lights never got switched off and the smokers had to wander through it to get to the Smokers' Sarcophagus at the back of the train. There was also no music and no rumble of air-conditioning. As it was cool anyway this did not matter and the place became mine, and a few others', sanctuary for the rest of the trip away from the Guantanamo up front.
The rest of the journey passed slowly with one scheduled stop in an outback "settlement" called Cook. Population: 3 people, 10 goats, and 3,000,000 flies.
The Outback fly is the strangest thing. They are everywhere and as soon as you leave your vehicle they start to buzz you incessantly, as if they were trying to drink from your eyeballs. You swat, wail, gnash your teeth and they obstinately refuse to settle down or be squashed. Then, after about 30 mins of this they all settle down on your back where they just sit and do nothing. They do not bite, they do not walk around on you, they do not do those wriggly things that flies do with their legs. They just sit and travel with you. Even away from civilisation and livestock in the middle of the desert they are still there in their hundreds. I have no idea where they come from, where their larvae develop or what they eat. They probably just eat tourists.
After staring at Cook for 40 mins we got back in the Iron Coffin for the final 3 lightyear trip along unbending rails towards Adelaide. This stretch was actually 450km without a single bend, one of the longest in the world. I believe that the road is similar. This is why I don't think that the trip by bike is feasible. Even if I had a bike that could make the trip, my mind would go soft first. The roads are straight, there are rest stops every 200km or so, there are petrol stations a similar distance apart. In all, there's really nothing to see; it is really an empty country when you get to the middle. As an example I believe that there is a cattle station out here that is about the same size as Belgium. Yikes.
So I finally arrived in Adelaide to meet my friends there. I could look forward to a proper bed, good food, and a couple of decent road trips by car and camper up into the more green parts of South Australia.
Next time I'm flying.