Only the truly masochistic would board the Indian Pacific in Sydney, emerging three days and several time zones later in Perth. Having been on marathon train journeys before, we decided to break up the trip with a stop in Kalgoorlie. Still, between Adelaide and Perth, we'd be spending two nights on the train, and not in a sleeper either!
We left on time from Keswick Station in Adelaide, a location we had faint memories of as we'd arrived in Adelaide by train the time we'd taken the 'Ghan' from Melbourne to Alice Springs. On that occasion neither of us had slept a wink and we were both semi-delirious from sleep deprivation hence the faint memories. Settled into our seats for the 26 hour journey we watched the scenery roll by, acclimatising slowly to the train environment.
It was just our luck, however, that the atmosphere was tainted by a family at the opposite end of the carriage whos' bizarre appearances looked as though they'd been achieved by selecting random features from a Mr Potato-head, they also seemed to be on nodding terms only with soap and water. This wouldnt have been a problem if the teenage girl who seemed to have inherited her fathers joke shop teeth (fortunately not his bushy beard, though still, give it time) hadn't insisted on waltzing down the carriage every five minutes, the open flap of her knitted cardigan trailing behind her and wafting the most pungent, sweet smelling, sweaty odours in her slipstream.
We'd left late in the day and it was soon dark, the dead zone of train travel. Once the view from the window had gone, we were left with a Disneyesque video, the soundtrack of which was drowned out by P.A. announcements for dinner and the like, rendering the movie redundant, unless you could lip read.
Later, we settled down for the night and I found the only way I could get remotely comfortable was by wedging myself on the floor, half under our seats and doubled up to avoid being kicked in the head by other passengers stumbling past in the dark - ah, the romance of train travel!
The morning saw a vast improvement - once I'd unfolded myself. The view was back in the form of the Nullarbor Plain, hundreds of kilometers of scrub and sandy desert which stretched in every direction as far as the eye could see. Strangely, this seemed to be no more than a few hundred yards as the sheer flatness of the featureless landscape seemed to compress both time and space. For hours on end it looked as though we were in a time slip where we knew the train was moving because of the motion of the immediate foreground but in the distance, the landscape barely seemed to change, giving the whole scene a surreal, elastic quality.
The only 'town' along the tracks between Adelaide and Kalgoorlie was Cook - population 2, where the train stopped to let us stretch our legs. I saw the first passengers disembark and watched them frantically swatting hordes of flies away from their faces and decided against it. Alex was far more adventurous and wandered off into the dusty shell of what had once been a thriving town.
With everyone back on board, we chugged out of town and back into the desert. Along the way, we traversed the longest stretch of straight railway track in the world - which is a lot quicker and more interesting to say than it actually was to experience it!
The day rolled along slowly, keeping time with the metronomic clickety clack of the train on the track like it had rythm to spare (copyright Neil Diamond!). Eventually, day turned to night and we found ourselves pulling into Kalgoorlie, the famous goldmining town where 3 Irish prospectors had sparked the original gold rush and nowadays, the worlds biggest open cast gold mine is still yielding huge amounts ore.
We'd booked into the York Hotel, bang in the middle of town on the main street. The frontier town atmosphere was still strong as we lumped our bags from the station. The rough, tough wild west vibe extended to the rowdy pubs which employed 'skimpies' basically, girls in tiny underwear, to attract custom. There were even brothels which had been taking care of the miners 'needs' for years. In a move towards acceptability some of them had evolved into some kind of 'attraction' where coach parties were ushered in to wander around then served a cream tea afterwards. The tours were so popular, you could even buy a baseball cap with a pair of fishnet stocking clad legs in red stilettos, advertising the fact that you'd been to the local cat house - only in Kalgoorlie!
It wasnt all scantily dressed ladies though, Kalgoorlies rich heritage was on display everywhere. From the excellent mining museum to the Miners Hall of Fame, we learned about all the triumphs and tragedies that had taken place over more than a century of gold mining. We even took a trip underground in an old mine to get a taste for what it was like for the men who risked all to make their fortunes from gold.
We hired a car for the day and drove out to the Broad Arrow pub, a roadhouse on the highway into town. Then we headed for what, according to the guidebook, was a real ghost town. All that remained when we finally found the place were faded green signs, the lettering barely legible, informing us that the small heaps of rubble we were now staring at were once the Post Office, Bank, etc.
On Sunday, John the landlord of the York, threw a heap of snags on a gas barbie on the street outside the pub. We flipped them onto buns along with fried onions and scoffed them while watching the West Coast Eagles footy team win their opening fixture of the season. Tyson, the pub dog, which looked like a stocky little dingo, went from table to table scrounging scraps of snags while we washed down ours with ice cold Swan lager - top!
All too soon, it was time to return to the station to complete the journey to Perth. Despite our stop over of 3 days, we could easily have stayed longer and we experienced a strange feeling as we headed through town for the last time. It was probably the realisation that we'd thoroughly enjoyed our stay but, barring something very unlikely happening in the future, the place was so remote that we'd probably never see it again.
Back on the train it was like the story and the location were the same, only the characters had changed, obnoxious little kids and their airhead mother replacing the 'stinkies' being the main change to the dramatic personae. We organised ourselves into night-time formation, Alex on the seats and me on the floor and prayed we'd get some sleep before our arrival in Perth next morning...
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