Train from SYD to PER

Monday, June 02, 2008
Our tour of ADL was somewhat disappointing; an hour and a half in a bus with a very informative guide, but I wish we had been able to get out and walk around the city. The train terminal is too far from the city for easy access on foot and by the time we got back from the tour there wasn’t enough time before the train left for us to do much of anything.
We did find an internet café ($A2/20 minutes) to email Kathy about our lost/stolen phone. She will try to cancel the Verizon service. We’re hoping we are still in the 30 day cancellation period. We’ll have lost the cost of the phone but we won’t be locked into 2 years with Verizon.
Dinner for the late seating was very, very late. We didn’t finish eating until 2300!
They have very imaginative names for the early and late seatings as I guess it’s too easy to just say Early and Late. Breakfast is Daybreak (early) and Sunrise (late), lunch is Bushman and Swagman, and dinner is Sunset and Moonlight. The times are wildly different thus ensuring that your digestion is never aclimated. Dinner tonight will be at 1930 and last night started at 2100 (by the time it was finished I was falling asleep over my coffee—and we eat dinner late at home!
I gave up last night trying to sleep in a small (VERY small) double bed with Randy and climbed up to the top bunk. That wasn’t much better but at least I could turn over!
We get awakened with coffee each morning at 0630 and the coffee is pretty good. I’ve learned that what we ask for here is a “long black,” meaning no sugar or cream and not a small espresso size. I think you can also order short white, long white, and who knows what else. At least it’s easier than Starbucks’ (yes, they do have Starbucks here) half-caf latte grande gobbledy-gook!
This morning we will be travelling through the Nullarbor Plain (I’d call it a desert but its official name is Nullarbor Plain), part of the Great Victoria Desert. This part of it reminds me a lot of the Sonoran Desert. We’re speeding by at 115kph so it’s hard to distinguish plants but in general the plants are reminiscent of the creosote and turpentine bush with some scraggly trees that look like mesquites. There is even the rare prickly pear (an invasive species here). And, although I cannot distinguish it at this speed, I believe there is lots of spinifex, a nasty plant that leave glass-like shards in your flesh if you brush against it. I know we’ll learn more on our 4WD tour next month.
We have a short stop this morning in one of the most remote towns on earth, Cook, 1100km from ADL and 1500km from PER. Perth itself is closer to Singapore than it is to ADL.
When we actually crossed into the Nullarbor the scenery really changed from the Sonoran-desert-like land with shrubs, bushes, and trees to a land where what little vegetation there is, is extremely sparse and very low-growing. The Nullarbor itself changes only from a desert with a few creosote-like shrubs (salt bush, I think) to a desert with no vegetation taller than maybe 10 cm and the only color change is from a pale gray-green to a darker gray. We were told it is the largest expanse of limestone in the world. As we travel across the Nullarbor I get the merest glimpse of what it must have been like to cross this desert—they can call it a Plain all they want, it’s a desert in any of my senses of the word—the isolation, the lack of water, the featurelessness. There are occasional dual-tracks from cars or wagons and single-tracks from animals across the red dirt but mostly it is flat and featureless as far as you can see. We are travelling along the longest absolutely straight stretch of railroad track in the world, 477km without the slightest bend.
We have sighted few living creatures other than the rare wedge-tail eagle (wingspan of 2-3 metres and the symbol of the Indian Pacific train) and even rarer smaller birds. There was one quick sighting of wild camels (I know that camels have only one hump but the Aussies making the announcements said they were camels). There is no ranching here at all, no sheep, no cattle, nothing but they do capture “camels” for export to Egypt and Arabia.
I try to imagine what it would be like to cross this desert by horse-drawn cart, or on camel-back, or on foot and I cannot. It’s difficult to even imagine driving across although a couple of our fellow travellers have done so. The towns are very few and most have populations in the single digits. Any hotel is likely to be one of the only two or three buildings in town. And best you have spare petrol (gasoline—I am learning to speak Australian!).
From a few hundred kilometers outside Adelaide all the way to Perth there appears to be nothing but red earth, some small plants and a few animals. The occasional town of few (Cook has 2 year-round) inhabitants shows up but mostly it is vast plains (desert). The view to the horizon isn’t even broken by any trees. Just flat, reddish-brown earth and plants that grow no higher than 1-2 feet (half a meter). There must be rodents because we do see the occasional eagle but very few animals larger than a rodent. I thought it would be boring but I found myself staring at the landscape through the train windows, mesmerized.