Camel, loaded up with nowhere to go.
The magnificent wedge-tail eagle at Adelaide Terminal
Round and round the city of Adelaide. Surely the Motorail Terminal would be important enough to warrant a signpost somewhere? My Aldi sat-nav – no longer trying to communicate in Portugese – insisted we go around and around the tram terminus and through the Leightons demonstrators until I feared we’d disappear up our own…. or their own. When, at last we arrived where we thought the Motorail Terminal should be, I stopped and asked a local. We weren’t far away at all, but even the local agreed that a sign or two wouldn’t be such a bad idea.
Even when we arrived at the Rail Terminal there was no indication where Camel should go to be checked in, but a little old man assured us we’d come to the right place. There’s nothing quite like being entirely alone in a place where you’d expect there to be a queue or a crowd, but everyone else had known what we were ignorant of, and had gone elsewhere to pass the time. There had been an “incident” and the train was going to be late, we were told. No one was prepared to elaborate. It would have been helpful to know how late. It might even have been interesting to know what kind of “incident” had occurred but, if anyone knew, they certainly weren’t telling.
We waited.
Finally Camel and I were parted. She went to board her car carrier and I went to kick my heels in the lounge/cafeteria area, for what was to be five more hours. Much shunting went on when the train arrived at 1845, and Camel’s carrier was hitched up. Two hours later we boarded and departed Adelaide. Dinner was very late. I was past eating, so just had a crab starter.
After a night that didn’t bring sleep until the early hours of the morning because my toes kept finding metal levers and knobs, a nice young lady brought a cup of coffee (the best I’ve had since I left home) and told me it was time for breakfast. How interesting that the menu had been designed around local ingredients. Various new flavours were added to most of the dishes on offer, courtesy of unheard of native seeds, and kangaroo featured, too. This probably appealed to the overseas passengers, but one or two vocal locals grumbled, “I grow it, these pesky things eat it!” The nut parfait was light and delicately flavoured with, perhaps, lavender.
This morning’s sights are so different from what went before. The skies are blue, the clearest blue with a couple of receding bands of cloud. Dawn was magnificent, the sun’s early rays gilding the edges of those streaks of cloud with red and gold, illuminating the rust-coloured earth and the grey-green scrub.
Lunch: Salmon. Delicious!
The Nullarbor proper began with a sudden absence of any flora taller than knee-high. No tree encroached on the spirit-level horizon in any direction, a condition that remained with us until late in the afternoon, by which time clouds had materialised from nowhere and covered the sky until after sunset when, surprisingly, they disappeared again in time for our late arrival into Kalgoorlie-Boulder.
Dinner: disappointingly, the menu was the same as last night. I chose barramundi. Nice. The cheeseboard was great.
A coach tour of Kalgoorlie was offered and I took the opportunity, since I might not pass this way again. The similarities between Kalgoorlie-Boulder and Broken Hill are many. Its once riotous night life, the dirty dealings, the miners’ particular sense of humour, etc., could have you confusing your location.
By the time I climbed into bed on this, the second night on the train, I had all the wrinkles ironed out. I tore up the neatly made bed and set the duvet and pillows up at the foot of the bed and slept upside down, so to speak. This meant I also got the benefit of what little “fresh” air circulated in that tiny dog-box. A much better sleep resulted.
In the middle of nowhere… the airstrip at Forest.