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Australia - Indian Pacific to Kalgoorlie27 Dec 2006
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Indian Pacific train
Indian Pacific carriages
View from the train in Western Australia
Our time in Perth had come to an end so after saying our goodbyes we got a taxi to East Perth station for the Indian Pacific train to Adelaide.
As we sat waiting around the station we started to notice lots of very strange characters and in particular one couple who looked like some crack heads to which David said that knowing our luck would have the misfortune of sitting next too. As we boarded the train we could hear lots of noise and low and behold they sat right down next to us and boy did they smell! We grimaced and thought that this would be a long journey but thankfully they were getting off at the first stop some 9 hours later which was better than the 3 days we could have had them for!
We were to spend the next three days and two nights on the train crossing this vast country. Not only do you have various time zones but the scenery changes many times even within each state and across the whole of Australia it is currently very dry and barren. Many of the farms close to the coast have dairy cattle but as you go inland you tend to find more sheep than anything else. We were amazed to see the carcasses of sheep just lying there obviously died through lack of water or disease and just left to rot. But not all the scenery was so bleak it was interesting to see the various types of countryside of trees, to red sand to salt plains.
Our first main stop was to be Kalgoorlie and this is famous for two things, the first being the huge open cast gold mine. The other being that of the first legalised brothel in WA. In fact there are still three brothels and they can be found on one road next to each other on Hay Street. We arrived in Kalgoorlie at night time but they still put on a tour for us of the town with its wonderful architecture originating from all the various types of western colonial influences and ended up at the lookout over the open cast mine. It runs 24 hours a day, is an amazing sight and is huge! In fact it used to be three pits but they have now merged it into just the one superpit. When we finished the tour at 12.30am we headed back to the train. At 1.40am we headed out of the station and off to Cook.
It was also here that we said farewell to our rather smelly next door neightbours as we set about settling down for the night.
