Last October we flew to Perth and joined a coach tour of W.A. Then we flew to Adelaide and hired a car with friends and travelled around S.A. We returned to Adelaide and then we were to catch the Indian Pacific Train from Adelaide to Sydney.
When we arrived at Adelaide station we were told that there had been a train derailment and The Indian Pacific Train couldn't get into Adelaide. So we were taken by bus to Peterborough a 2 hour trip north, where we had been sight seeing a few days before.
We were waiting on Peterborough Station while the train was serviced. It has come all the way from Perth on the Indian Coast and it goes across Australia via Adelaide to Sydney on the Pacific Coast. It takes 3 days and nights to travel the 4,352 km. Ann and George have done this whole trip but the rest of us were going to trial the shorter 2 day, 1night trip from Adelaide to Sydney.
The train has 16 cars and is 427 m long.
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| The dining car |
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| The lounge car |
At first we travelled through desert.
While we were at dinner the crew converted our cabin into a sleeper. However, we didn't find it easy to sleep as the train rocked about a bit too much.
In the morning the scenery had changed to farmland.
We climbed over the beautiful Blue Mountains into Sydney about lunchtime.
The diesel engine went in backwards to terminate at Central Station. The symbol of the Indian Pacific Train is the Wedge-tail Eagle. Australia's largest eagle. Its massive 2 m wing span symbolises the train spanning the continent.
The en-suite on board was extremely tiny and I was looking forward to a nice warm shower and a change of clothes. We said good bye to our friends who were flying home to Brisbane. We were going to our daughter and SIL's for a few days before flying home.
Bill loves trains and he was keen to try out this famous Aussie train. I warned him not to expect it to be as good as the super European trains that he was used to in Switzerland and Europe. We enjoyed the experience but we wouldn't like to do the 3 day trip across the country.
