Day Two
Hour Fourteen: First sleep of the trip. It went alright. Sporadic is the best adjective to use to describe exactly how it went. One or two hour rounds of sleep was all I could muster. It’s still dark out even though it’s nearly seven. We should arrive in Broken Hill at 7:30 AM, or so they say. The sun is now trying to muster the courage up and rise already.
Sunday, March 23 2008, 6:54 AM
Hour Sixteen: Just spent a lovely hour at the delightful township of Broken Hill. Let me tell you, there is jack squat here. A few buildings here and there, maybe some houses. We walked around for a few minutes, I convinced Becca and Dave to have beers at around 7 AM. Good times were had all around, minus the fact that Broken Hill has nothing. Bill Bryson got off the train here too; he apparently rode in the sleeper cars. He’s got nothing on me.
Sunday, March 23, 2008, 8:09 AM
Hour Twenty: The scenery has really opened up. Australia is flat. I don’t think words can aptly describe how barren it is here. Just miles and miles of nothingness. The fun part about this morning has been the “spot the animal” game where we looked around to see if we could spot any kangaroos or emus. We had a few sightings here and there, as it was a bit late in the day by the time we were on the train again. Tomorrow morning should prove to be full of roos and emus. The long travels continue and I still feel pretty strong. The task is difficult, but we’re nearing the halfway point. Well, in fourteen hours or so. We’re about four hours away from Adelaide.
Sunday, March 23, 2008, 11:13 AM
Hour Twenty-Seven: Our time in Adelaide has just wrapped up. We had around three hours to get off the train and explore the small city, managing to have a nice Easter dinner at an Italian place. Dave being of Italian descent, it’s a family tradition of his to eat Italian food on Easter Sunday. He enjoyed himself, although I’m sure not as much as he would have back home on Long Island.
The train journey is set to resume shortly. Two nights and one full day are all that stand between Western Australia and us. I would rate the trip fun so far, with lots of interesting people and even some families. It’s kind of a mystery to me why anyone would bring their entire family on a train ride as long as this one. Even the Adelaide-Perth leg is a not too shabby 40-some hours. The nicest thing is not being on the Internet; I’m learning how much time of each day I waste looking up unimportant information and that I could be doing better things with myself. Let’s see what lessons I can take from this trip other than that.
Sunday, March 23, 2008, 6:20 PM
Hour Thirty-Two: Well, with five hours passed, not much has changed. We just stopped in Port Augusta around ten minutes ago and people actually got off the train. Kind of a shocker is you ask me to see people get off the train at this hour. I just got beat by Dave at Scrabble (again). There wasn’t much to look at in terms of scenery for the last few hours as the sun set at around 7. No Kangaroos or Emus at dusk, although we were in town. I watched a few episodes of 30 Rock and don’t really feel like going to bed right now, seeing as though I’ll probably not sleep a whole lot. I could always just wait til tomorrow during the day, when I have nothing to do and sleep then. I think I’m going to grab my book and come out here too read. Most of these entries are just as boring as the experience is. Nighttime isn’t the most spectacular hour on board the Indian Pacific. Next stop is tomorrow morning in Cook at around 9 in the morning. I hope to not be up for that at all.
Sunday, March 23, 2008, 11:12 PM
No comments:
Post a Comment