It was another early start for me as I woke up at 5:15 to begin my journey to Melbourne's Southern Cross Station. As it turned out, I wasn't too upset to wake up early thanks to my roommate "Henry." "Henry" was a guy in his 40s from Trinidad who was in Australia for a conference and decided to travel around afterwards. As I found out as I was trying to get to sleep the previous night, he also must have some kind of sleep apnea or something. Two minutes after he went to bed, "Henry" began to emit snoring sounds from the bunk below me that, compared to everyone I've heard snoring in my life, were unrivalled in both volume and character. I actually laughed out loud when the snoring away--remember that I had begun the previous day at 4:30 AM and had walked around Melbourne for a good 10 hours. Somehow thanks to my exhaustion I was able to get a few hours of sleep peacemeal between "Henry's" snorts and snorks, but my early alarm was met with a great deal of relief. I fumbled through the dark room for my things, bid a silent, thankful goodbye to "Henry" (as well as a note of empathy for my other roommate, an Asian guy who had already had to put up with "Henry" for several nights) and began my trip downtown.
Interstate train travel isn't really used much in Australia, since the distances between cities are a little too far to make it practical. The Overland, operated by Great Southern Rail, is one of the few journeys still around, and the only one operated by GSR that can be completed in one day. You could, for instance, travel by train from Sydney to the far western city of Perth in a three-day journey on the Indian Pacific train. Not wanting to spend three days on a train, I picked the shortest journey possible (which was actually cheaper than both Qantas and the bus) and planned my trip around it.
I was surprised how small the train was, relatively speaking. The Overland was actually only seven cars: two standard passenger cabins, a cafe car, two premium cabins, and a two-car locomotive. There are rush hour subway trains in DC that are longer than that. Nevertheless, the train was very comfortable, with cushy seats and an ocean of legroom. My seatmate was a chipper older woman who was returning to Adelaide after spending the weekend helping her granddaughter plan her wedding in Melbourne. We left on time, moving at low speed through Melbourne's outskirts before picking up the pace and heading west towards Adelaide.
Eleven hours is a long time to do anything, and it was an enjoyable yet lengthy trip to Adelaide. This part of Australia isn't blessed with the same kind of diverse natural beauty as New Zealand, so much of the scenery flying by outside the window was flat green farmland that reminded me of driving through rural Pennsylvania. Every so often, we'd pass through a little industrial depot or a far-flung service town, and the train's service manager would come on the intercom to share a little anecdote about the stop we were making.
As the train glided along from Victoria to South Australia, I watched the color of the grass outside change from dark green to a lighter, paler color. To celebrate the Melbourne Cup, service manager Melanie ran a "sweeps" onboard the train, where people could come up to bet into a $1 or $2 coin pool and pick the winner of the race. Seemingly all of the Australians made their way to the cafe car to do so, and a queue formed into my car. My seatmate came back clutching a little ticket bearing the name of a horse and smiled impishly at me. "Might as well celebrate the Cup," she explained. Around two PM, a crackly radio broadcast of the race came through on the PA. I could barely make out what the announcer was saying thanks to the static and his accent, but apparantly a horse called Americain won the race, sending a few happy people to the cafe car to collect a little paper sachet of their winnings. Besides this little excitement, the trip proceeded uneventfully. I'd like to say that I spent the time thinking about profound things, but I was content to just watch the world go by, listen to some music, finish the book I had brought with me, and catch up on some sleep from "Henry's" unique sleep sounds. And thinking again, just a little bit, about how many people there are in the world.
My window view for much of the eleven hours
The train arrived in Adelaide at about 5:30 PM, after eleven hours on the rails. I didn't have much of a plan to get to my hostel--the interstate train station was located near the city centre, but too far to walk and not connected to any public transport services. I was prepared to take only the third cab ride of my life, but a long queue formed outside the station as no cabs arrived thanks to the Cup. I ended up jumping aboard a shared shuttle bus that took me into the city, where I walked a few blocks to my hostel for the two nights that I'd be in Adelaide: Hostel 109.
Hostel 109 was one of the best hostels I've stayed in during my trips. A small place with only 20 rooms, it is run very capably by Malcolm, a very pleasant bloke in his 50s who greeted me at the desk (even though I arrived after checkin was supposed to be closed). Malcolm spent a full 15 minutes with me getting me settled, annotating a map of the city, and answering all my questions about how to get to the places I wanted to see the next day. He personally walked me up the stairs to my room, greeting the other guests by name and introducing them to me as we went. The room was spacious and outfitted with the most comfortable beds I've slept on in four months, already made up for me. There was also free, unlimited usage internet (which ended up being very valuable, since I had to register for classes for next semester at AU while I was in Adelaide) and a big TV lounge where I watched the first TV I'd seen in months. I was physically taken aback when I saw commercials advertising for Christmas--as the days were getting longer and warmer, it was shocking to think that Christmas was just around the corner. I had forgotten what time of the year it was...already November!
I headed out into Adelaide for a late dinner. I'll write more about Adelaide in my post tomorrow, but I had a very positive impression of the city. It's easy to walk around and has heaps of restaurants and things to do. I went down to one of Adelaide's "eat streets:" Gouger Street, which is home to Chinatown and a huge proliferation of restaurants, from Japanese to Italian. I picked a Thai place at random and had an OK Pad Thai, and finished it up with a gelato. I snapped the picture below from the menu at the Thai restaurant, which offered several meat choices that you wouldn't find in the States!
No koala on the menu?
ReplyDeleteI can't believe that was the first real TV in months. I wonder what was on?