Adelaide to Perth - Train

 The Nullarbor is thousands of miles of mostly flat dry desert. A testing ride for anyone.  Did we do it?  did we heck.  We caught the train instead!

Nolene and David rode into town with us on their bikes. After saying goodbye to them we did a bit of essential shopping, ate a picnic lunch in the park and then set off for the train station with plenty of time to get our bags organised and book the bikes in. The station is a way out of the CBD and so it was annoying to discover once we arrived that the train had broken down outside Sydney and was delayed by two hours. This meant a four hours wait in the station with little to do except read. Due to the delay there would be no meals served on the train that evening so we had to be content with a fairly poor meal in the cafe on the station. At least it filled some time.

The Indian Pacific trains have four classes of ticket: Platinum, Gold, Red and Backpacker. Our finances only stretched to red and our two berth cabin was small to the point of being tiny. Hardly room to stand up once the bunks were up. But after 9 months in a tent it was just like home. There was a lounge carriage with chairs and free hot drinks and a buffet car shared with the backpackers. The train travels amazingly slowly, walking pace at times and stops for long sessions regularly to re-fuel and re-water. At times the ride was so rough it felt like the train had left the rails and was going over the rocky earth.

Waking the next morning we got our first views of the countryside with the sun rising. Not quite into the true Nullarbor, there were low pine trees and grasses looking intensely green against the vivid red earth.

As the day continued the trees disappeared replaced with a flat featureless landscape stretching to the horizon. It was much greener than expected due to recent heavy rains.

There was a stop at Cook, at one time a town boasting a school, jail and bar but now almost a ghost town with only four residents. All the passengers were happy to be able to stretch their legs.

Cook Jail

Sign at Cook

Dawn Over the Wheat Belt

By the next morning the Nullarbor was left behind and was replaced with the white earth of the wheat belt but no wheat, as the crop failed to grow due to the drought. The railway then drops down through the Avon river gorge towards Perth and after a great overnight effort and a fast downhill we managed to arrive on time.

Perth

We had booked a couch surf and Terry, our host, came to the station to pick us up. The first two days was spent getting the bikes boxed up and exploring Perth and its suburbs.

Bussleton Jetty

After that we hired a car and drove down to the Margaret River area. The coast here is beautiful with lots of pale gold beaches and rocky headlands. There were some lovely camp grounds in the national parks.

Margaret River

Our favourite was at Conto Beach where we had the whole area to ourselves, complete with barbecue, toilet, firewood and kangaroos.

Back at Terry's house we packed up all our camping gear and posted it home before our flight to Singapore.