The Nullarbor

 

We’ve had a 2 ½ hour time change to bring us to the South Australia Daylight Savings time zone, and are now riding through the Nullarbor. Before brunch we were still in the woodland, but as we ate we could seen the size and number of trees reducing quickly. Now the tallest vegetation is no more than a 6 foot high bush.

We stopped briefly at Rawlinna where this was the only
building I could see. Not sure who lives there or
what it is used for.

We have also been served an afternoon tea buffet with a couple of small cakes and meat pies. Again, everything has been quite delicious!

There's even onboard entertainment! Guitarist/singer
Max traveled up and down the train, making
1/2 hour stops in each lounge carriage

Relaxing with a drink and some company
during the long straight run

All afternoon and evening we saw nothing but these tiny scrubby blue-grey bushes with the odd punch of bright green for miles and miles and more miles, but one could sit there absolutely mesmerized by the unchanging landscape under bright blue skies. The colour palette was actually very calming.

One of our mail stops, with the local resident here
to greet us.

We were surprised to see an aircraft hangar and a
plane out here, but this huge territory is serviced
by the Flying Doctor Service, based in
Kalgoorlie. This may be a fuel and service depot.

And every so often we would see large trucks,
tractors or other equipment just sitting near the
tracks with nobody around. That dirt strip
in front is what passes for a road out here.

We were on the lookout for emus and kangaroos, but saw nothing, barely even a bird. The train made a number of brief stops along the way, whenever there was any sign of human habitation. The Indian Pacific also delivers mail and packages on its weekly run through the desolate area.

We viewed a beautiful sunset around 9:00, and not long afterward pulled into the tiny community of Cook. Here they had set up a bonfire and numerous tables for everyone to enjoy an hour or so to stretch our legs and do a little stargazing in the clear night sky. They were also offering nightcaps of Port or Baileys for us to enjoy.

After doing a little experimenting with the camera settings on my phone, I did manage to get some really nice photos of the stars, even though the moon was full and washed out all of the Milky Way. It is really odd to see familiar constellations in strange orientations. Down here Orion is upside down.

Passengers gathered at the tables around the bonfire.
This stop has replaced the cookout
beside the train that they used to do in Rawlinna. 

My favourite photo of the train with the full moon above

After another high-speed run – the train can apparently do a maximum of about 110 km/hr – we woke to find more of the same Nullarbor vegetation. I haven’t taken photos of all of the food served on board, but it has been consistently very good and plentiful. Yes, we did even try a little cured kangaroo on a Ploughman’s Lunch plate. Very lean and actually quite tasty.

It was a day to just relax and socialize, as there was nothing in particular going on until we reached the disembarkation point for our evening tour at Seppeltsfield Winery in the Barossa Valley.

This salt sea is Lake Hart. It was previously the site of
a salt mine, and only gets a small amount of rain
each year.

We passed the town of Port Augusta which is in a bay on the Great Australian Bight. First water we've seen for quite some time! Next stop - the Barossa Valley.

 

Kalgoorlie - The Middle of Nowhere AND the Mining Industry

 This morning (Sunday January 12) we were already up at 5:00, not because the bed wasn’t comfortable, but because we’re still suffering from a bit of jetlag from the flights and the alarm was going off before 6:00 anyway.

Sleeping on a moving train is a lot like trying to sleep on a plane in the midst of some minor turbulence. There’s a lot of jerky and bumpy motion going on most of the time. Instead of the monotonous whine of the airplane engines, there is a constant background noise of the wheels on the rails, and every so often a big ‘Whoosh’ when we passed another train. It also seemed as though we were moving really fast; I’ll have to ask somebody about the overnight speed. Editor's Note: We did, and it seems that the maximum speed for the train is about 110 km/hour.

The hardest thing about getting up this morning was getting around. Some things, like our toiletries bag, are too big to keep in the bathroom (which is very small but still has a shower stall!), and we’ve had to be creative in storing our clothes. There are a couple of half-height closet compartments which are too short for Larry’s shirts, but as I didn’t need to hang anything up, we’re using my side for our computers and other small items. Getting to the safe is fun, too. It is at floor level beside the bed, so in night configuration I’m the only one of us who can reach it! There really is quite a bit of storage space, but only for small things.

There are windows on each side of the room – one directly to outside and the other on the passageway so we could see through the window on the other side of the train. Here's a view of the passageway. As you can see, it is impossible for two people to pass each other unless they are both very, very skinny and stand sideways! There are mirrors at the end of each carriage so you can see if anyone is coming before you start down the hall.

At the end of each car there's a tiny pantry so you can make
your own coffee or tea if there's no service in the lounge. There
are also biscuits and fruit handy if you get peckish.

We did manage to get up and dressed and ready, and headed to the lounge assembly point. We were first in, but were followed closely by the rest of car L and M. With 5 compartments per Platinum Class car and two cars per lounge, we have a total of 20 people using our dining car.

Now this is where a train journey starts to remind us of a cruise. Tour buses are assigned to take us on the tour we had pre-booked. So we check in with one of our train staffers at the bus to make sure we’re in the right place and accounted for. The only difference is that it takes longer. Most stations aren’t long enough to fit the whole train, so once each section has offloaded, the train moves up to bring the next section up to the platform. So we had to wait until everyone was off the train and into the right buses before we left.

We had chosen the ‘Curious Kalgoorlie’ excursion, which would take us to a couple of places, one to a local artisan and ‘recycler’ and the other to learn something of the history. But we found ourselves also visiting the largest gold mine in the world. Journey Beyond had made some changes to the itinerary and had the train coming to Kalgoorlie in the morning rather than the late evening. Apparently they used to visit the Super Pit Mine at night when you couldn’t see anything!

Kalgoorlie is the epicentre of gold mining in Australia. There have been mines in the area since the late 1800s, and they are still among the most prolific in the world. The Super Pit was created by one fellow who bought up all of the mines within a small region and joined them all into one huge one.

  

At the current visitor overlook. This will all disappear
sometime soon when the mine is expanded.

 

The size and depth of this mine is incomprehensible. Each
one of those little shelves is 50 metres lower than the previous one.

A very large truck that looks very tiny! If only we could
have found a person to really show scale. But then
we probably wouldn't have been able to see him!

This mine is 3.5 km long, 1.5 km wide, and currently over 800 metres deep. There are expansion plans in place which will extend it substantially. This mine currently produces around 1 million ounces of gold per year, using some really interesting technologies for determining exactly where the gold is so they don’t waste effort on processing plain rock. Our bus driver/guide Wes explained the process for extraction, which requires crushing the rock that holds the gold into a powder and putting it through a chemical bath which results in the gold adhering to charged steel wool-like pads. It is very, very unusual to find gold nuggets in mines like Super Pit, but the technologies they use for locating the seams and producing the gold make open pit mining like this a viable industry. One of the ‘golden’ tidbits Wes told us is that gold can actually be traced to exactly where it was mined. It may be something about the purity or perhaps the specifics of the impurities that allows the precise – within a 4 foot radius – determination of the source area. So if anyone is tempted to steal gold from his neighbour, he can be easily found out.

It was hard to get photos that portray the actual scale of the pit. The dump trucks hauling the ore are carrying 60 tons at a time, but they look like tiny Tonka trucks. In reality, a person standing beside one wouldn’t even reach the top of the tires! There aren’t even many normal sized pickup trucks driving around, and I definitely didn’t see any people. The mine is just huge – big enough to be seen from space.

After the Super Pit, we went to visit the workshop of Chunky Timbers Co. The gentleman who owns this interesting recycling shop, as Wes called it, takes steel and other cast-off material from mining and various wood offcuts and fallen trees and makes amazing items from them. He explained that something like 40 of the hardest and densest wood types, also the most termite-resistant, in the world live in the Western Australian Woodland. He gets these from various sources, cuts them and fashions them into wooden boards, coasters, tables, anything he sees in the wood.

Chunky Timbers Co. yard. Apparently this dinosaur
was once driven around Kalgoorlie during a fundraiser
and came back with a hat and some other decorations, but
raised a few thousand dollars in the process

Kim, AKA Chunky as he described how he
takes a piece of wood, finds some pattern or
shape in it and creates a piece of usable art

He soaks his products in oil for an extended
period to keep them from drying out and give
them a lovely sheen - it also helps ensure
there is no infestation

Some of the pieces - serving plates and cutting boards - he took out of the oil bath to 
show us. Gorgeous!

Chunky also uses some small leftover pieces of wood to make 'Nullarbor Beads'. He cuts them into various shapes, drills a hole and then tumbles them in oil. They can be used to make bead necklaces, bracelets, wall hangings, and even what he calls 'Nullarbor Buddies'. He gave each of us a small bag with enough beads and leather string to make our own Buddy. He has the instructions on his social media so we will have to check it out. You can't get much more of a unique souvenir than this.

Another piece. This one is made of the wooden beads
suspended in resin and cut into slices. If only we had enough
room in our suitcase!

Larry even made friends with one of Chunky's
dogs!

His stuff is so gorgeous that we would have been tempted to buy something, except that even the smallest cheese board is very heavy and we would have to be able to guarantee that it had been treated to ensure that it was not infested with any bugs.

After that short visit, Wes drove us to Boulder, a neighbouring town which is now municipally attached to Kalgoorlie. The Town Hall dates back to 1903 and is a beautiful building, and many of the facades of the other buildings down the main street are being restored to bring the area back to its original look. Being early Sunday morning, nothing was open for shopping but I was content with taking photos of some of the more interesting buildings.

Inside the Boulder Town Hall. Many of the 
furnishings are still the originals!

From the 'dress circle' where members of the
public could watch the council proceedings

The outside of the Town Hall

The Grand Hotel across the street. Almost
reminds you of something out of the Wild West! But
then again, it really WAS the wild west.

A lovely restored building across the street. This
is also a hotel

After our half hour in Boulder Wes drove us to a rail siding where the train had arrived to pick us up. Again, we boarded in sections and the train moved forward to bring the sections to the access stairs. 

Once we were all back on board, having done all of the above before 9 a.m.(!!), brunch was served. Again, absolutely delicious and plenty to fill us up! And outside the windows were the beginnings of the desolate Outback.

On the bus out to our train pickup point, some of
the areas around the Super Pit

The Super Pit mine from a distance. The terraces
are all made from discarded rock and are set up like
that to allow planes to descend properly toward
the local airport. They aren't allowed to fly right over
the open pit itself.

Some of the vegetation at our pickup point
outside of town.

The view from the window during brunch service

Every menu came with a lovely pen and watercolour
cover describing some local produce

For brunch I had the full breakfast, which in this case was pieces of ham steak, a fried egg on sourdough toast and a grilled tomato. Larry went for the 'BLT' - which should have been more aptly called a 'Poor Man's Benedict'. Two (and one would have been plenty, even for him) fried eggs on top of back bacon with some greens on top of sourdough toast, with a little hollandaise sauce squirted over for good measure. I guess the chef thought everyone would be extra hungry after getting up so early.

So now we were headed off across the Nullarbor, the flat treeless plain of the southern Australian Outback.

 

 

 

 

Our Introduction to the Indian Pacific

Yesterday (that was Saturday January 11) afternoon we finally boarded the Indian Pacific Railway to take us to Sydney. Finally not only because of the few months’ anticipation of the trip, but also because for some reason head office at Journey Beyond advised everyone to be at the station at 1:00 p.m. but boarding wouldn’t start until 5:00. Of course most of us didn’t know that, so the poor staff were scrambling to start checking us in and taking the checked bags for loading in the luggage car. 

The Welcome Banner

They had a nice setup on the platform with seating for everyone, champagne and wine and afternoon tea type sandwiches, cakes and cookies. They also had some wildlife preservation people there with a koala and a snake.

The cute little Koala was very attached
to her handler, but happy to get back into her tree.

The train arrived a little before 5:00 and surprisingly we were boarding within an hour. The Indian Pacific has only been running regular service since 1970. Full cross country service had been available before that, but as each state in Australia had decided on its own what rail gauge to use, they were all different. And within the states, many are still using their old systems. But back then, to travel between Sydney and Perth would require changing trains 5 times! In the early 1960s it was decided to standardize the gauge for at least one line to provide easier transportation of both goods and passengers from coast to coast. Once the passenger line was completed it was named the Indian Pacific because it spanned the country from one ocean to the other.

  

We were assigned our Platinum Class double compartment in coach L, room #2 and found our on-board bags already waiting for us. The daytime configuration of the room is actually spacious enough, with a couch and small table with 2 ottomans you can pull out. There’s also storage space in the ottomans, so that’s where we put our shoes. We had to wait for our hostess to show us some things in the room and give us our dinner time assignments, so we unpacked as far as we could while we waited. There is quite a bit of storage room on both sides of the couch and a large but not too high shelf over the bathroom, but our duffel bags were still piled up in the corner under a small table.

   

Our train manager made an announcement before we left with a couple of statistics. There are 209 guests on the train, at least as far as Adelaide, where people can disembark and embark for partial crossings. The train has 32 coaches, some of which are storage, kitchen and staff coaches, and is over 800 meters long!! You can hear it for yourself as we have a brief look over the room.

This is what the cabin looks like set up for sleeping. The area around the bed is so narrow that it was very hard to turn around. Moving around required a bit of advanced planning!

Reaching our lounge/dining car requires us to cross through car M. At least we don’t have to traverse long stretches of the train! Moving between cars is quite easy to do and doesn't require going outside, although the small area between the doors can be very, very warm if it is hot outside. Our lounge car is decorated in what you would probably call ‘mid-Century modern’, or as Larry says, ‘early’70s recreation room’. It is really quite comfortable, though. Our service staff are all great and can’t do enough for us all.

The Platinum Club Lounge carriages are a combined lounge and dining car because each one only serves about 20 people, or two Platinum carriages. In Gold Class there are designated lounge and dining cars as there are many more guests. We figure there are about 60 Platinum Class and 150 Gold Class passengers on our train.

 

We had a lovely dinner. The menu choices are quite varied and the portions are a good size. Larry had Asian style dumplings for his appetizer and cannelloni for dinner, and I had a cheese soufflé and lamb shank. A cheese plate and dessert if you wanted it rounded out the meal. We didn't take photos of every meal during the trip, but they were all delicious.

  

We were already advised by Summer, our hostess and room attendant (responsible for putting the bed up and down each day and taking general care of the room) that our tour was departing a little after 6 a.m. and brunch was being served upon our return at 9:00. So we decided to get to bed early and hope we’d get enough sleep.