It’s not the journey it’s the people you meet on the journey that makes it an interesting experience.
When you travel Gold class on the Indian Pacific, the drinks in the lounge car are all free, and as you can imagine the people are very friendly. We have breakfast from 6-10 and then the lunch sitting and dinner sitting times are appointed on your card. Yes, a lot of eating and drinking going on from east to west.
The meals are gourmet and very nice, I wouldn’t say excellent, but lots of good meat and veg and lovely desserts. Of course, I stayed away from Kangaroo and possum. We had dinner with a publican (pub owner), an electrician, an engineer, a lay preacher, and a young American university student. I helped one old codger figure out how to use his phone to call his son, as he was on his first trip alone without his wife. One couple had only been married 7 months, but I found out this was her third husband and his fourth wife!
Our first stop was Broken Hill a wonderful mining town full of history. We chose to go on the Pro Hart tour. Pro Hart was an amazingly talented artist who drew wonderful scenes of life in the outback. An ordinary man, grew upon a sheep station and worked on the mines and became a billionaire, but always stayed true to his roots. He met the pope and many high dignitaries around the world. If you google him, you’ll find his amazing artwork.
Next stop Adelaide, the city of festivals was a rainy cold day, so we hopped a city tour for an hour and headed back to the train. Yes , of course, in time for dinner!
Aaah riding the rails! My husband who is an old railroad man, says, “Whoever maintains these rails, should be shot.” A very bumpy ride most of the way, definitely not for the faint hearted. And then the broken rail! Yes, a four hour wait just before we entered the Nullabor which made us 7 hours late getting into Kalgoorlie where we arrived at 1:00 am.
The journey continues… stay tuned… I’m singing my old football cheers… “West is best.”
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