13/11/11-15/11/11
It was time to leave the West coast behind as I began my 41 hour train journey to Adelaide in South Australia. The journey would take me through one of the harshest environments in the world, the great Australian outback. We had several stop-offs along the way, the first was the gold town of Kalgoorlie that evening. Arriving near to mid-night on Sunday, the town was eerily quiet as everyone was safely tucked up in bed. After a brief walk round I ventured back to the train to try and get some sleep. My seat and bed for the journey was a reclining seat which wasn’t too uncomfortable, the only problem was I had to have my feet on the floor so there was aching joints in the morning.
The next day as we passed through the outback a variety of wildlife could be seen including emus, eagles, kangaroos and camels. Surprising it was quite green outside due to the recent fall of rain, usually the orange sand and rock dominates the landscape. Our stop off today to refuel was at a town called Cook, literally in the middle of nowhere. With the privatisation of the railway the town as slowly shrink with only 4 people now living there. Here the price of water per litre is the same price as fuel due to the remote location. We were allowed to wonder round the ruins of the town which once had a school and hospital. After half an hour we were back on the way to Adelaide, that day we officially passed from the West to the South.
Our trip officially came to an end the next day when we pulled into Adelaide woodland railway station in the early morning. Jumping on the express bus I was soon at my new hostel just off King William Street. I first needed to find supplies including a new towel as I discovered I left my mine at the last hostel – no way was I going back for that! In the afternoon I popped into the SA Museum and the art gallery before making my way back to the hostel to cook dinner and grab some needed sleep.
No comments:
Post a Comment