Jack’s Blog

Friday first of May 2009

 

I got up a couple of times in the night-got dressed at 6 AM and Penny bought coffee at 6:40. I went down to the Explorer lounge and took some photos etc before the crowd arrived before brekkie at 7 AM.

I sat with Brendan again. Good brekkie-after which we sat in the lounge and talked.

 

It is now 9:25 AM. I thought I would sleep last night but very restless. The cabins are so small! You understand why you can’t take suitcases to the cabin. Hanging space and storage are all miniature. The room is very very tired and needs a complete refurbishment- a lot of rattles etc. When the bed is down the door only opens about a third of the usual way so have to squeeze in and out

 

An announcement told us we were now entering the Nullarbor proper-and the landscape changed dramatically.

 

Before this there were plenty of gum trees and scrub and small hillocks etc. Then it became flat and treeless. No wildlife evident.

There are regularly spaced solar panels and sheds-presumably these power the radio towers as there is mobile reception every so often on the train.

At 10 AM we stopped for 30 minutes at Cook-now just a refuelling place. Five people live here to do the refuelling of the train etc plus they have a souvenir shop. I got myself a certificate. Got a photo of the train and myself also.

 

The plain is so flat you feel you can see the curvature of the earth.

 

We crossed the Western Australian border at 11:49 Central Time. There is a sign “Welcome to WA”. However the train stays on Central Time until Kalgoorlie.

1:10 back from lunch-small but good. Finally saw some birds but we are going so fast it is hard to work out what they are.

I made a list of the animals and the times I saw them.

 

Birds nests on most of the radio towers

 

1:24 PM 2 hawks

2:15 PM we came to the end of the 478 km straight stretch the longest straight stretch of railway line in the world

2:49 PM 3 cows

3:00 PM 2 black birds-crows?

3:08 PM more small trees appearing now

3:11 PM 2 kangaroos

3:19 PM 1 very small bird

3:20 PM 10+ birds

3:25 PM Rawlinna Village

3:32 PM 2 birds

3:42 PM pair of crows

3:44 PM jackpot a pair of wedge tail eagles.

Trees are now increasing in numbers

3:50 PM 2 windmills

3:54 PM small flock of birds

3:55 PM a small bird defending itself against a bigger bird

3:56 PM 1 rabbit

4 PM another weggie

 

I thought I would be bored just sitting in my room looking out the windows but as you can see from above there seems to be something happening all the time.

 

I took a lot of photos as we were moving-and I’m surprised at how well they have come out. Some were taken on zoom but all were when we were really moving along.

 

I had a beer or two at the lounge with Brendan and some others before dinner. Peter  joined us for dinner-good conversation about Winston Churchill and World War 2 and genealogy.

 

I went back to my cabin as we would be getting off at Kalgoorlie when we arrived there. We had a 40 minute stop for refuelling before we got to Kalgoorlie and it was quite boring just sitting in the dark not knowing what was happening as there was no announcement.

 

Finally we arrived at Kalgoorlie and Brendan and I walked into town. Peter F asked us for assistance-he showed us Paddy Hannan’s statue where you get a drink. He headed back to the train by himself-he didn’t want to go to a pub.

 

We looked in a couple of the pubs and had a pint each at the Exchange. Very friendly crowd. We drank Boags pints-imperial pints. Excitement when a young female stormed into the bar and attacked another barmaid. Bedlam! But a good laugh even if it was real.

 

Next we went across the corner to another pub . West End lager-terrible!

 

We stopped at Judd’s Hotel & Bar on the way to the train and had two more beers. No TVs, but a huge crowd. They were mainly young people, mid-20s to mid-30s it appeared. We started with Little Creatures Pale Ale- a very different taste-sort of sweet. I enjoyed it but Brendan didn’t so I got him a Boags for our second drink.

 

Back to the train-we were nearly the last to board-but my bed was not made up. Had to find a staff member but none available except the bloke letting us back on the train-he fixed it for me as I had no idea how to pull the bed down.

 

I had to wait till after 10:45 PM before going to the toilet as they are locked until we started moving again.