Portillo another lying Tory .... or the Indian Pacific Railway Journey leg of our Australia tour

 In Portillo`s Great Australian railway Journeys he states that "despite it`s very few twists and turns the route is certainly not boring". I hasten to differ. Now like every person I spoke to on that train it was undeniably an experience i`ll never forget but also one I`d never repeat. The Indian pacific crosses Australia from Perth to Sydney for 2,704 miles including a world record 300 mile totally straight track within it. It is without doubt a massive engineering feat. The food and drink onboard is of the highest quality and there is the chance to chat with fellow travellers in the lounge cars shared by every 3 or 4 carriages on this huge train.He talks of fascinating off train experiences and live music and entertainment on board not to be missed. I`m not so sure. The excitement of boarding the train was challenged when we saw the rather cramped cabin offering two narrow beds and a very limited bathroom that was to be our home for the next 4 days and 3 long nights. As my knee was giving me problems as usual Sue took the top bunk which at least had the security of a guard rail and a wide stepped ladder. 

Narrow corridors

Why long nights? Of all the people I spoke to we met only one person that claimed to sleep on the train. Now some had virtually landed in Perth with jetlag and boarded hoping for solid nights of sleep. They were to be disappointed. It was the first time I felt that I needed a seat belt in a bed having been nearly thrown out by the bumps and jolts on the first night. It needed to be bigger, smoother and we thanked God that we had upgraded to a twin cabin with shower rather than having a shared bathroom too.

I sighted few animals on the whole journey but was told of distant emus and kangaroos that had always vanished by the time I turned around. In many ways this Kangaroo curry I had for breakfast i think one day was the nearest I would get to one on this rail journey.

The entertainment bit of the package was odd. A very good singer guitarist played to us at Perth station and boarded with us. Unfortunately the only session he played in our lounge car was a disappointing piece of guitar musak with none of the Dylan and Sheeran songs heard on the platform. The 2nd entertainer was more disappointing. We think we saw him a big bearded drag artist who we were later told hosted a bingo session in the lounge car which we were fortunate enough to miss and never saw him / her again.

Portillo also told of the exciting off train experiences. These started badly and gradually improved. Our first was a novel visit to a huge working gold mine at Kalgoorlie. here we would see monster trucks, a play about its foundation and a town tour.

Why novel? It took place late evening. Long will I remember a big group of us standing on a windswept platform being blasted by dust as we peered into a dark black hole on a dark black evening.

You get the picture? :-)

The play was amateur at best whilst the museum curator told us "Look in the museum. We`ve stuff in that room and more stuff in there". Funnier still was that as the train had to move around a bit they had told bus drivers not to get back before a certain time so 5 coaches drove around Kalgoorlie at around 5 mile an hour with guides desperately trying to think of things of note or interest until the train was ready. They failed!

Next stop was "ghost town" Cook in the heart of the Nullarbor. I`d imagined derelict buildings to photograph in this town with a population of 4 men and 1 dog. As we pulled in we witnessed the whole population emptying bin bags into a skip as their dog ran behind. The "town" just services the train now as they wash it down and refill water / fuel. The half hour stop served to allow most people to get off , walk the length of the train for a photo and then get back on. Hardly a highlight. The sensible ones didn`t bother getting off into the heat. I found it hard to differentiate between the  abandoned portakin type structures and the one the "population" actually lived in. Seems this was another of the best spots to view a kangaroo as the "washing down" was to get rid of the roos and other animals hit by the train during the night and I might have seen one on the front bumper if I`d been quick enough out there!

Look closely in the tracks for the bleached bones of animals caught by the train

Cook Jail

Next was the more interesting stop of Adelaide but what was the scenery like I hear you ask. Well I took a handful of shots through the windows as we had no observation car to stand on outside unfortunately. I could have kept it down to three to summarise the scenes for the first 900 miles, another for the middle 900 and one more for the last 900 I feel.

Adelaide was much prettier. here a guide gave us a whistlestop tour of mainly the statues / war memorials of Adelaide before ending in a rushed breakfast at the Adelaide Oval. Lovely city with a beautiful riverside.

Impressive seeing how clean war memorials were kept everywhere in Australia with some quite striking Anzac memorials.

Seems this fellow Bradman was quite a good batter

Our last off train experience was the best to the Blue Mountains about an hour outside of Sydney. After a lovely breakfast at a gorgeous wedding venue in the mountains we visited Scenic World. Here we were able to go on  the Scenic Skyway cable car, the steepest train in the world and to witness the beauty of the Three Sisters, Orphan Rock and Mount Solitary. Stunning scenery.

Wedding venue in the Blue Mountains

From the cable car

The Three Sisters

Through the glass floor of the cable car

Hard to show just how steep this was but you had to really grip to stop falling forwards.

It was nice to start meeting people on the train who we`d later see on the cruise and out and about in Sydney. Here too we met Keto Man (Haim and Mrs Haim as we called them too). He was obsessed with keto and somehow we ended up sharing a table at every one of the first few meals on the train. He would reject every dish shouting "Keto, Keto" in his faltering English and end up after 3 attempts or so with a plate of meat smothered in loads of extra butter with only green vegetables or salad. He`d demand 4 eggs for breakfast and generally get upset and frustrated at staff`s inability to grasp what he wanted. They had just got used to him by the time we got to Adelaide when the whole crew changed and he had to start the education process, as he saw it, all over again. After witnessing this on multiple occasions we were indebted to Christine and David who we had talked to briefly earlier. "Please can we sit with you for dinner?" I asked. Christine commented how flattering it was to be asked whilst I replied "Anyone would do  to get away from Keto Man". As we looked across a Chinese couple joined Keto Man for dinner and after 5 minutes got up and left them for another table. "You see that`s what we should have done "  I said to Sue "but we`re just too British".

Anyway a standard train into Sydney took us to be reacquainted with our luggage for a transfer into our Sydney hotel. This was my favourite bit of the trip and will be my next blog.