The Train Ride

Spinifex

Our day began early on Magnetic Island. It was cold and we had no heat. I laid in bed under the covers and watched an old Australian TV show, Skippy, The Bush Kangaroo. It was like an Australian version of Lassie. The little boy was locked in the cabin of a runaway boat and Skippy used his little kangaroo paws to open the lock and save the day! By the time we drove onto the car ferry at 8:00 the sun had warmed it up and we were looking forward to another glorious day. Once we arrived in Townsville, we located the train station and the airport. We spent the morning looking around and walking on “The Strand”. Mr. Harding dropped us at the train station and headed off to the airport. We were sad to see him go!
Neither one of us has ever taken a train journey. We have ridden on trains, but never on an overnight journey or on a sleeper car. It is so fun! It is not large, but it is way more comfortable than an airplane. It is about a third the size of our locker areas at school. We have 3 bunks and we all sit on the bottom one until we pull the beds down. If we had three people, there would hardly be room to turn over. Since we have 2 it won’t be quite so crowded.
Our train left at 12:40 and we looked out the window all afternoon. We were hoping to see kangaroos, preferably lots of them, but sadly that was not to be. One of the things we have seen a lot of is termite mounds. They are beige colored and look kind of like rocks. We saw a few that looked like castles and for a short while they were bright red. There were some camels along the track, but we don’t know if they were wild or domestic. Australia does have quite a few wild camels.
One of the things that surprised us is the train doesn’t seem to be going very fast. Because we are traveling beside a road we notice that cars and trucks move past us with some regularity. It has been interesting to watch the changing scenery. Near the coast it was fairly tropical, but the forest quickly became more sparse and dry. The grass is brown. We think this is because it is winter here, but it may be from drought. We will try to find out. Sometimes there are no trees and it looks kind of like the grassland of western Oklahoma. Then we get back to trees. It is dark now and we think when we wake in the morning we will be surrounded by red dirt, but we really don’t know. Surprisingly we have not seen cactus. We expect to see lots of Spinifex tomorrow. It is even in the name of our hotel!




June 20, The morning was lucky. We finally saw a big kangaroo from our train, and we saw another camel. Mrs. Morris spotted an emu! The terrain was really rather pretty this morning, lots more trees and plants than we expected, and quite a bit of color. It kind of resembles southwestern Colorado, or southern Utah. I was expecting western Oklahoma, but there was far more birdlife and colorful foliage.
Our first stop, after dropping our luggage at the motel was a place called the Outback at Isa. The town of Mount Isa is a mining town, and home to one of the largest mines in Australia and the world. The mine dominates the town. It is not particularly attractive. They mine for zinc, copper, lead and silver mines. The mining museum was pretty interesting. It included a lot about the history of the town. The mine took pretty good care of the people who worked here. But the townspeople were poor. They used to light the spinifex bushes on fire to see their way home at night. We touched some spinifex in the Outback center, and it really is sharp as needles. Remember, we read spinifex is all over the Outback, is food for nothing and very difficult to navigate. We don’t know why they named our motel after it. It grows in giant clumps, two by 6 metres and is green on the outside and brown in the middle. We didn’t actually see any green. While we were wandering through the Outback garden which was beautiful we saw large clumps of spinifex, apricot trees, gum trees and many flowering plants. It wasn’t very big, but we got turned around and couldn’t find our way out. Now we can truthfully say we have been lost in the Outback!
Tomorrow, we will spend the day at the Outback at Isa complex, once again. However, our day will be devoted to visiting the visitor center of the World Heritage listed Riversleigh Fossil Beds. And now a small moment from Mrs. Morris.
Our adventures through the Land Down Under have taken us on a few different modes of transportation. We zoomed across the ocean on a pontoon-like speedboat to reach the Great Barrier Reef, cruised down the Daintree River in a flat bottom motor boat at night to view creatures of the night, and taken two ferry rides, one short one across the Daintree River to reach the Daintree Rainforest and one 35 minute cruise across the ocean to reach Magnetic Island. Yesterday and today we experienced yet another mode of transportation—the train, a REAL passenger train in which you could ride in a sleeper car, not just a cruise around the amusement park.
Being the romantic sort that I am, I was eagerly anticipating all this adventure had in store for us. What encounters would there be with the other passengers, would the dining car be as mysterious as all the movies portrayed? Of course the movies don’t show all the issues involved with traveling. Issues such as what does one do with one’s luggage, and what does one really need on a sleeper train?
There was also the dilemma of traveling in a berth for three now that there would only be two of us since Mr. Harding left us today. Who would be our third companion for our overnight train ride? Mrs.. Harding, for those that don’t know, is one who will ask questions to anyone who looks as if they might be of help and she did indeed find someone to ask. A woman about our age was standing with her luggage waiting to board our train and she seemed to know the ropes. After a chat, we determined that she might very well be our new overnight travelling companion.
When we first made our reservations and couldn’t get the two person berth I was not that concerned about sharing with a stranger. Now for some reason I was having second thoughts. The “room” we were sharing had a long seat that served as bed #1, the back of this seat was bed #2 and then above that was bed #3. Not a lot of room to share with someone you know let alone a perfect stranger! But here we were. Surely it would be ok.
As Mrs. Harding said her farewells to Mr. Harding, I sat in our compartment with our soon-to-be new Aussie friend, Sue. I was rearranging my backpack and inadvertently dropped some coins on the floor which Sue immediately reached down and picked up. Quick note about Australian money, there are $2, $1, $.20, $.10, and $.05 coins and I forget to spend it.
Now, I’m sure you, like me, expected that Sue was being polite and hold those coins until I was ready to take them and put them away. WRONG!!! She immediately got out her purse and put them away!! I was at a loss for anything to say and really felt a little violated. What does the next 21 hours hold as we are stuck in close quarters with a thief!!
Lucky for us Sue preferred riding in the dining car as opposed to the sleeping berth so she left as soon as we were under way. I quickly told Mrs. Harding that Sue was a thief and we quickly began plotting how we would spend the night watching our belongings. Sue had really put a stink on my mysterious train ride adventure!
Because Sue had spent time in the dining car, which is not mysterious or romantic, she had complained that she had requested a lower berth but got the upper one instead and with her bulging disk problem she wasn’t happy. It was part of our plot not to offer to sleep up top so she would be sleeping up there. She whined enough that she was “upgraded” to a single berth and Mrs. Harding and my fears were alleviated.
From that point on we enjoyed our train ride, even catching a glimpse of a kangaroo, emu and camel! So, for all the kind, helpful Aussies we have encountered thus far, we thank you and haven’t let this experience spoil the rest of our adventure! It was only about $.70 that she took and for all I know she needed it more. Or there may be a rule in Australia that if money falls down from someone’s purse and you pick it up, it’s yours! Cheers!