The Nullarbor

From Perth to Adelaide

The train journey on the India pacific from Perth to Adelaide is one of the great railway journeys of the world It is the only way to see the Nullarbor desert. This enormous plain is inaccessible by sealed road and even the Eyre highway from Perth to Adelaide only skirts the bottom of the Nullarbor Plain.

The journey starts at East Perth station which must be one of the ugliest buildings in the whole city. The full train is about 25 coaches with various grades of traveller – gold, red-sleeper and red non-sleeper. Gold is quite luxurious with two berth compartments and all meals provided while red-sleeper (ours) is quite comfortable but the sleeping accommodation is “compact" and you eat as you need to in the dining car. Non-sleeper tickets are much cheaper but it would be an ordeal to sleep in the seats for two nights that is best avoided if you can afford it.

[Actually the red sleeper is a miracle of modern engineering. It is amazing that it is possible to fit two full size bunks, two small lockers, a washbasin, storage rack into a space measuring two metres by 1.5 metres. Unfortunately they seemed to have forgotten that you also need to put people into that space as well. Luckily we are not too fat. ]

The Indian-Pacific in Perth

We leave at mid-day and the train trundles slowly along the Swan valley, which then becomes the Avon Valley as it rises up onto the ridge of the Darling Range east of Perth. You travel through wooded hillsides until you reach the plain at Northam where the landscape changes into wheatfields bounded by small shrubs and trees. These wheatfields were already harvested in some places but where you could see the full grown wheat it was surprisingly short and not very close packed. Compared with English wheat the yield must be tiny, but then there is so much land that it is no doubt still profitable.

We pass through several small 'towns' usually consisting of just a few homes and a grain storage depot where grain can be loaded onto the trains. The mountains of grain resemble the heaps of sand and gravel from the gravel beds near our home in Cirencester – created by conveyor belts with pointed tops. Road trains – trucks with two or three huge trailers – deliver the grain and are tipped up to ditch their load by the conveyors.

Meckering, Cunderlin, Tammin, Kellerberrin.... sometimes the train stops and we peer out of the window to see if we can identify the reason. Perhaps they are dropping off goods for the local community or we are waiting for the single track to clear ahead. The pace is very leisurely. We are tracking the Great Eastern Highway (a rather fancy name for an almost empty two-lane road) which we flirt with as it as it approaches the track and then moves away again. There is also the water pipe that was built around 1900 to supply water to the Goldfields at Kalgoorlie which doggedly hugs the road. This is a marvel of engineering carrying water 900km from a dam near Perth to a desert town, but without it Kalgoolie would not exist

The Kalgoolie pipeline

As we press on eastwards the landscape slowly changes and the wheat looks even shorter and more sparse. There is more scrub land and soon it is mainly small shrubs and small trees that dominate. By the time we reach Southern Cross - a tiny settlement but with big letters on the map – there is little evidence of farming of any sort.

Southern Cross

Although it is drier here we have been chasing some rain all journey and we finally catch up with it at this point. The track turns north away from the highway and passes through huge salt lakes, some of which are completely empty.

Salt lake in the distance

Salinity is a big problem in Australia. We have seen lakes like these close up and you can find huge salt crystals on the edges. After a while the direction resumes eastward towards Kalgoorlie

The place names on the map seem to have no physical counterparts – or if they do they are too small to recognise. Koolyanobbing, Darrine, Jourdi, Walleroo ... It begins to get dark and there is no light other than the setting sun and eventually we cannot see outside the train at all. At 9:50 we arrive in Kalgoorlie – a real frontier town that we remember well from a previous visit. It is still a major gold mining town with truck-loads of miners arriving on a Saturday night to spend their pay. There is a scheduled 3-hour stop here so we rush off to see if we can find somewhere that will still serve us a meal. Nearly everywhere is shut except for a couple of noisy pubs which we think we should avoid, but finally we find a pace that is open 24 hours and manage to fill our stomachs. Just as we leave the rain has caught up with us and there is a torrential downpour. The town has large storm drains, but the downpour is so voluminous that even these are overflowing. We try to wait it out under shelter but eventually we have to make a dash for the train and arrive soaked through. It is all rather ironic in a desert town short of water.

The next morning we wake up to see the Nullarbor under a dull, cloudy sky. There s no growth more than a couple of feet high and as we progress even these small shrubs gradually disappear. The land is completely flat with lots of stones sitting on the red sand and some very small shrubs. It is just wonderful. Emptiness for hundreds of kilometers in all directions (well only about 100km south before you reach the coast). There are no springs, lakes, streams rivers – no open water – in the Nullarbor; no trees, no shelter of any kind. And yet up until the railway was built, Aboriginal tries lived here.

In the middle of all this we stop at a 'station' at Forrest. This is an airstrip in the middle of nowhere at which large jet aircraft can land if they get into difficulties – it is the largest runway in Australia outside the major cities. The airstrip also serves as a refuelling point for light aircraft and is manned by two people. We stop to deliver their post.

This stretch of railway track is the longest straight track in the world. No curves, no cuttings, no bridges or tunnels, for 478km. We wonder why it is not smooth! The train bumps around like the old British Rail trains of our youth. But the railway was built by a British engineer of the same vintage so that might explain it.

Nurina Station - the view was the same on the other side of the track

The big event of the day is a one hour stop in Cook.

The locomotive at Cook

This was, until 1997, a small settlement of a couple of dozen houses including a school, swimming pool and a hospital. When the railways were privatised circumstances changed and the number of inhabitants has since dropped to four. There is a sign saying 'Save our hospital – get sick”. We emerge from the air-conditioned train into a dry heat of 32 degrees with completely the wrong clothing. Why the train is so cold I have not yet worked out but it has been the same on many other trains that we have travelled on. A strong wind is blowing the dust around and dried shrubs tumble around.

The children's playground at Cook

Whilst this train is not as sociable as some of the others we have been on, we still manage to meet people and listen to their various stories. There is Alex, aged 85 who explains the benefits of internet dating, except that the last woman he met died about a month after they went on holiday together; there is a young Finnish man who explains how he has done one degree in Finland but did not graduate so that he could do another degree in Perth, but not graduate so that he can commence a third degree in Edinburgh. We meet a couple from Yorkshire who have decided that reclining seats were not such a good bargain after all. Jeff manages to bore a couple of passengers by talking about global warming. We then catch up with the rain again and have the strange experience of seeing the Nullarbor covered in puddles.

The train's PA system congratulates us on having completed our traverse of the Nullarbor. Perhaps we will get a certificate. Despite having crossed the Nullarbor there is still another eighteen hour (i.e. another night of trying to get undressed in the smallest space imaginable – surely smaller than the NASA astronauts have to manage with) before we get to Adelaide.

After we emerge from the Nullarbor we see, on the north side of the track, the signs for the Woomera atomic bomb test site. This area is still radio-active but its OK because they put up warning signs every now and then to keep people out. (I'm not sure how the wildlife read these signs.)

Woomera - you can see the warning sign in the distance

We finally arrive in Adelaide - with the rain.

Albany to Adelaide

Albany

We lived in Albany for a year (97/98), so returning here was “coming home” in a sense. Right from the start things seemed familiar. Driving the 500km along the Albany Highway did not seem to have changed. There was still no traffic; from the edge of metropolitan Perth to the beginning of Albany we pass through three towns. Williams has a population of 1000, Kojonup has a population of 2000 and Mount Barker has a population of 2500. I think we saw about five cars going in the same direction as us. There is a lot of space in WA.

The town itself hardly seems to have changed (and the friends we left behind do not seem to have aged either). It is real small town Australia, with big wide streets and a laid back charm.


















York Street - the main street (view north)

















York Street (view south) on a Saturday afternoon

In the centre it has an old world feel (well for Australia) since many of the houses are early 20th century. The climate is described by West Australians as “cold and wet” but for us temperatures in the mid 20s and a very occasional shower were perfect. (I think we used our rain coats once). The setting is magnificent with granite hills and white sandy beaches set amid grey-green bush. We caught the end of the wildflowers, missed out on the whales who left about two months ago and decided that its still too cold to swim in the Southern Ocean. In Albany the next land to the south is Antarctica. Both the beaches and the bush are also empty – may be its because its still school term here, but even at weekends it would be rare to see more than a dozen people on the 3km long Middleton beach.

















Middleton beach

There are spectacular coastal and bush walks and that is how we spent much of our ten days whilst not socialising. We have had ten days of good meals with old friends, including Moray and Jenny with whom we swapped houses and jobs in that year away. In fact despite our intention of cooking for ourselves we found we only did that once.

We gradually re-acclimatised to Australia and now say things like “She'll be right” or “Stick it in the eskie mate”. However we still shudder when shop assistants say “Catch you later – or phonetically – “cadge yer lader” which brings out a desire to say in our best English accents “I'm so sorry we won't be around later to meet up with you”. We decided to consolidate the acclimatisation by going to the cinema to see the new Australian blockbuster, called “Australia” . Its billed as a big screen epic romance. However to us it seemed more like “Carry on up the Kimberley” rather than “Out of Africa”. I won't say its the worst film we have ever seen ... I could say something about turkeys at Christmas.

And yes we are running up to Christmas. We went to the Albany Christmas pageant, which contained floats with Surf Life Savers in their “bathers” (translates into English as swimming costume) and the Albany Philippino Club in their sarongs.



















Christmas pageant - led by olympic medallist



















Christmas pageant - scottish pipers (?!)
It was a warm evening, so we finished off with chilled glasses of alcohol – a very different experience from an English Advent Market.

We head back to Perth for a few days before setting off on another train journey – after being land based for so long we are missing the trains.

Here is a view from the boardwalk - just a little way out of town

Java to Australia

Tues November 13th: Day 42

We arrived in Tajung Priok at about 7 p.m. and found a taxi to take us into Jakarta. The half-hour journey was one of the most nerve-shattering rides of our lives and it is hard to dwell on without breaking into a cold sweat. But we did arrive at Gambir Station in one piece, this being the starting point for out train journey towards Bali.

Booking trains in Indonesia is much like booking ferries. You can't do this except from the station from which the journey starts. If the train is full you just have to book seats on the next one. Our train was full so this meant a night in Jakarta. Meg, ever enterprising had noticed an Ibis Hotel on the way in. I had my eyes closed by that time. So we got a taxi, asked for the Ibis and off we went. The driver began very slowly, not seeming to know where he was going, and then seems to come up with a plan. We discovered later that there are 3 Ibis hotels and he has chosen the most distant (well, why not?). This hotel was full. We eventually found somewhere nearby which was just perfect and felt very relieved. Jakarta is not the kind of place for two naive white tourists to be seen hiking their bags around after dark.

By morning the legacy of the ferry journey had reached Jeff's stomach. However, with tickets for the 'Exzecutif' class train (air con, reclining seats, etc) we thought we could cope. Although it was a 12-hour journey it was not as bad as it could have been and we saw a lot of the countryside and small villages en route. The train passes through the rice paddies and we have learned quite a bit about growing rice now. The flooding of the fields is mainly to keep down the pests. Unfortunately the flooding also increases the amount of methane produced and this is a potent greenhouse gas. Virtually all the work is done by hand - apparently there is very little mechanisation that can be used on small paddies such as the ones we saw.

We arrived in Surabaya somewhat the worse for wear and quickly found a hotel near the station for the next days train. Meg went off to but the tickets while Jeff positioned himself within easy reach of the toilet. It was 9 p.m. and the station was apparently locked, although there were signs of life on the other side of the track. Meg saw a security guard slip into the station through a locked gate (and not re-lock it). So undaunted, braving the jeers and cat-calls from taxi drivers, she let herself in the gate, crossed the track, found the station master and purchased tickets. Colonial'

officials are still apparently in awe of mem-sahibs. (And it says a lot about station security).

Surabiya from our hotel

This train turned out to be a class down from the previous one but was only 8 hours to Bunyawangi – the ferry terminal to Bali.

Surabiya station

The scenery across East Java is much more interesting and sometimes quite spectacular.

The train climbs slowly up over the hills, through thick vegetation, and there are some excellent views of the mountains in the distance.

It is clear that the people living here are very, very poor.

It was a great relief to get to the bus station and stretch our legs. We were crowded onto a small bus and driven off to the ferry. While waiting for the ferry to leave we watched kids swimming in the harbour next to the ship. Passengers were dropping 1000 Rp notes into the water (about 6p) and it was a bit like feeding the ducks as they all rushed to get there first.

More worrying was that we had noticed a large brown organic object floating in the same water just a few minutes before ...

Seeing the island of Bali ahead of us with the Sun setting, was quite magical.

There followed a three hour bus journey – now upgraded to a slightly larger coach (the ferry fee is less for a small bus) through the dark to Denpasar, the main town on Bali. Without a toilet and without stopping this is something you needed to prepare for but we have learnt the ropes now.

We arrived at our hotel in Sanur at 10 p.m. and felt we had at last reached somewhere 'safe' where we could sleep, eat and rest without needing to look over our shoulders all the time. The hotel was excellent and after three days our wobbly tummies had pretty much settled.

Our stay in Bali was divided into two parts with three days by the coast and four up in the hills at Ubud. This turned out to be a good choice. Ubud is completely different and gives a much better insight into Bali life than the more touristy coastal resorts. We explored Ubud on foot and then took a 'tour' which involved a trip to the volcanic area where you get above the clouds and can see the various craters. Gunung Agung is the highest point in Bali and is an active volcano and this was easily visible in the distance.

View of the volcano

Our tour then provided us with mountain bikes and a downhill ride of some 40 km.

With only four on the tour (plus our guide, Made) we descended via back roads through villages and farms, and he was able to answer virtually every question we had – really good value. We saw a school – and went inside to meet the pupils on their lunch break – and stopped at a 'typical' Bali house complete with its temples (all Bali houses have temples!).

After about 10 km of descent the heavens opened and we continued through some of the heaviest rain we have ever experienced. But the rain was warm and once you are completely wet it no longer matters, so we continued along roads that became rivers until we reached the steepest parts. Without any functional brakes these were impossible to ride down so we walked (through the ankle-deep water). It was great fun but nice when we finally stopped.

A Bali Village School

Ridge walk in Ubud

One evening we met an English couple, Geoff and Sue, who had been travelling for some weeks around Indonesia. Their story confirmed, and reinforced, our view that Indonesia is not really a place for the inexperienced 'mature traveller'. Sue had contracted Dengue fever early on and how she had coped so well was a mystery to us. We would both have run for home. On our last day in Bali we shared a car with our new friends and toured the north of the Island.

Wild monkeys

And so on Saturday 22^nd November we took our flight from Denpasar to Perth just 52 days after leaving Cirencester. We stayed with friends where fine wine, good food (not a grain of rice in sight) and sunshine reminded us of why we wanted to come to Australia. There followed three wonderful days on our friends' farm in Nannup where we worked on the vines, planted trees (and were re-aquainted with Australian flies). Jeff even got to drive the Landrover. And whilst we ate breakfast we watched the kangaroos and listened to kookaburras.

The farm.

After a good rest and back in Perth, we were once more overwhelmed with the beauty of this city and the friendliness of its inhabitants.

Perth from ferry

The light in WA is of amazing clarity and everything is sharp, and vivid, with the colours perfect for an artist's palate. We walked around grinning from ear to ear, almost unable to believer our luck in just being here. Just looking at the sea overwhelms us, the white of the sand against the aquamarine sea .... this sounds like a travel ad.

After a few days we drove down south to Albany where we lived for a year back in 1997/8. There followed 10 days of catching up with friends, visiting old haunts and plenty of exercise and good food.

View from Mt Clarence.

Albany is a town of about 20,000 inhabitants which serves an enormous rural farming area and provides the port facilities for exporting woodchips and logs. It has wonderful natural beauty and is somewhere well worth visiting if you ever reach W.A. We love the place and would happily live here.

Little beach