Day One – Leaving Bathurst – First Impressions

We pulled into the Bathurst railway station at 6:45. We dropped tom down there with all the suit cases for check baggage earlier, a taxi came to our house at 6:30 and he’s had twelve fares to Sydney in the last 3 years each costing $450. One guy, a showie, wanted to go to the Cross and paid the driver for 12 hours $40 an hour, just to wait for him.

We boarded the train at about 8 pm, the train was a little late, because it had to wait for a freight train on the same line, first impressions on getting on the train, was the air conditioning, 2nd impression there was more room in the seats then I expected. 3rd impression, there was plenty of room in the luggage racks, 4th impression seats very comfortable but it’s only early days yet.

Plenty of spare seats in our carriage S, the next carriage which was carriage R was much fuller, the red kangaroo lounge was carriage Q, and the dining car was carriage P.

Dinner on the train was Subway rolls we bought in Bathurst.

We found a power point that we could use in the lounge car away form the yobbos, and I used 2 surge protectors, to protect my precious laptop from the evils of potential power spikes from the big diesel engines.

It is now 11pm and I’m pretty tired. I’m going to have my first attempt at sleeping on a rattler.

I’ve only travelled small distances on train before, never over night. My son Jack is typing this because he is much faster than me. Now he will use this lappy to play his new game Battle For Middle Earth.

A cursory glance at the menu has reassured my tummy that it won’t die and we have booked in for the six am tour of Broken Hill on the bus.

Day Two

The first night on the train lived up to the bad stories we’d heard about sleeping in coach class. Pretty rough! We had some ferals on the train who were rowdy and drinking and tramping past our seats on their way to the smoking carriage at the back of the train. We slept in fits and starts, finding it difficult to get comfortable, the seats are great for sitting, but sleeping was more challenging. They also turned the air conditioning down during the night so it was warmer in the carriage during the night.

Breakfast was left over Subway rolls, great idea and economy!

I got up at 5:30 to get some shots of the sunrise. The train pulled into Menindee in an awkward position for shots, so I went back as far as I could on the train to get a better angle. I braved the smoking car – nearly expiring from the smoke. The price we pay for better photos!

Then we pulled in to Broken Hill, where Alex and I went on the bus tour of the town and the Royal Flying Doctor Service base. The tour would conclude in one of the local art galleries.