[tripdiary] the indianpacific spans the land.

phew! i'm finally in sydney after a loooong ride on ''the mighty indian pacific''. heh. so that was the ride i've been waiting and planning so much and so long for and it didnt disappoint. was down with a bad bout of flu the day before the ride which was probably caused by all the rushing around whilst settling stuff in perth.

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day one - on the train was terrible. feverish and with a nose that was runny..bad bad combi. struggled between getting more rest and wanting to stay up for the changing scenery and soon i had to admit defeat and pop a panadol or two. sleeping in the upright position wad hard, but i was lucky to have the adjacent seat empty too. the carriage was pretty packed i reckon (oh how wrong was i... it was to be considered relatively empty!). time wore on and soon it was 6 hours into the ride and dinnertime. the meal of viet curry with rice and veg didnt stay down well tho. sigh. got to know adrian(irish) and ben(tasmanian). friendly and interesting characters. :P reached kalgoorlie abit before 11pm and headed to the pub for some beer with lads i met on the train. moved on to another when the first closed after one drink tho. heh. this second one had erm... more interesting bar staff. so if you're at the exchange hotel in kalgoorlie, buy a jug! :)

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day two - by now we were crossing the nullarbor aka 'the treeless plains' i tink. a hot shower early in the morning did a lil good cos i felt a little better after. wells maybe its just becaused i'm more rested now too. nothing much to see thru the windows so a couple of us just hung ard in the lounge car. stopover at some isolated town named cook that had a population of 4! there wasnt much to see and soon we were off again. passed time playing 'rummey' with merrick(english?), pete(english?), adrian and ben in the afternoon. met jess(mackers!) and leka(brazilian). had a much better dinner of 'some beef mushroom thingy'. lol. officially on south australian time now.

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day three - arrived in adelaide in the wee hours of the morning to bleak skies full of grey clouds. a couple of us did a mad rush from keswick station into the city to grab brekkie and some groceries for the last leg of our journey. we also said our goodbyes to merrick and pete in adelaide. sigh. officially met laura(english), gayle(english) and simon(perthite) tho. the train leaving adelaide was quite packed (seriously!) but by now it was bearable cos we had our little refuge in the lounge car, where time just flew by! stopped over at broken hill late afternoon and we sortof walked from 'one end' of the town to 'the other end'. it was that small, but big compared to other towns/ outback cities. leaving it also meant that it was the last bumpy night on this train journey. dinner on the train and a final movie session in the lounge car with everyone. booo! :s

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day four - last stop, central station in sydney. my first impression was that it was such an oldish city. complex transport network and all too big. collected all our luggage and headed off for one last coffee/pint before we went our separate ways. i sure hope we meet again, hopefully sometime and somewhere in our future travels. :(

wells. at least it was fun while it lasted. for that, i am grateful. till i find time to properly sort stuff out... go here! till next time.. ;)