Location: Shitty Hostel, Perth, West Australia
Enough said. Going to rent a car with this girl and drive around, see dolphins and rocks and things.
From Wednesday afternoon to Saturday morning, I was on a train, moving west from Sydney to Perth. Trying to sleep was a nightmare, but the experience itself was worth doing, and I’d do it again. From Sydney, I sat alone, kept my earplugs in and talked to no one. We arrived in Adelaide on Thursday afternoon, and stayed for 4 hours. I ran to the store, mailed a postcard, made a phone call, and ate dinner. Didn’t get to see all that much of Adelaide, which I suppose is unfortunate.
I hopped back on the train, which was now moving in the opposite direction, as Adelaide is the terminus of a spur line from the main east-west rail track. Our seats were rotated 180 degrees, and I was now in the very front of the train, not that it mattered. I was also sitting next to a very interesting frenchman, who had many amazing travel stories. To sum up, the next few days were very long. Sleep was pretty much impossible sitting in a seat, even though they reclined more than an airplane seat would. There was a nice lounge car, however, and I spent most of the days in that. On Friday, after the train had begin its trek across the 500km Nullarbor Plain, on the longest unbending section of track in the world, I met a Dutch girl and a Korean girl, both backpackers, as I overheard the Korean girl, Jin-ya, talking about how stupid she though most US Soldiers in South Korea were. That started a nice “You’re an American” conversation.
Jin-ya and I talked for most of the day, as well as with a very nice elderly Indian woman, a Turkish woman, and a young Japanese woman, Kazue, who was in Australia to study English. After another 20 hours, we arrived in Perth, which was a nice 37 degrees Celsius, which is 98 degrees Fahrenheit, or something.
Train travel may be long and inefficient, but it affords you a level of relaxation and opportunity that you never get with air travel.
