We landed at Perth at 22:30; a very simple uncrowded exit from the airport, an even more uncrowded bus waiting to take me into the city (I was one of only two passengers), which dropped me at the very door of the town centre Youth Hostel. Already feeling a spacious contrast to the confinements of Hong Kong.
At the hostel I was persuaded to take a single room at little extra cost to the dormitory room booked, and it wasn't very long before my airborne day came to a peaceful conclusion. (The persuasion was effective mainly because Saturday night rowdyism was expected in the street outside the dormitory.)
So this was Australia at last.

Sunday, October 8th
Sun shining. An early morning hot bath (in a real bath, the hostel being an adaptation of an Edwardian-style guest house), and then off to the nearest supermarket at 7:30 for cornflakes and milk and bread and ham for a 'do it yourself' breakfast. It was an Asian supermarket, hence open at 7:30 on Sunday morning.
Then an explore of the city through the wide, nearly empty Sunday morning streets. A few widely-spaced Hong Kong-style tower blocks in the centre were entirely suitable as a focus for the surrounding openness and were really quite attractive. I suppose some of the Hong Kong towers might be attractive if one could see them individually.
I found myself down at the Swan River quayside just before 11, when a boat was due to depart on a river cruise, so I took a one-way ticket down to the port of Fremantle. It took an hour or so, with occasional commentary on the passing scenery, particularly pointing out all the millionaires' mansions, who lived in them and how much they paid for them. At Fremantle I viewed the Indian Ocean and then back by train to Perth (I hadn't been on a train for 5 days!), thus starting a genuine coast-to-coast rail journey.
Many shops, including a post office, were open; a Visa machine accepted my card this time which was reassuring, and a band was playing in the main square and people were dancing,(folk dance type), and anyone could join in. I did not.
An Australian Sunday.

Monday, October 9th
Trip by two free buses to the City Busport and then on to King's Park, a large park set on a hill. Time for a couple of hours walk. Many parts were rather artificial, but some almost bush country with amazing wild flowers most of which I could not name. This was a time when Marion really should have been here, instead of being fast asleep at 1 o'clock in the morning at home.
A good overview of Perth's situation, looking over the river, town and intervening express road network. On a lake were extraordinary looking plants looking like semi-submerged oil drums, each with a stalk sticking up alongside with brown leaves on top; a very 'unplant-like' plant. I suppose some sort of water lily.
I walked back to the Hostel, packed up and left by 11:30 to walk to the 'Perth Terminal'. This is the Trans-Australia railway station, separate from the other West Australian railways; in fact separate enough to have its own gauge, as I noticed when I arrived, so there was to be no change of gauge on this journey. This is the British standard gauge of most of the rest of Australia, completed through to Perth not until 1970. Western Australia is still 3'-6" gauge.
As I approached the station, the stainless steel Indian Pacific coaches were moving into the platform and an announcement being made that boarding would not start until 1:15. So no hurry, and over an hour to wait. A massive diesel loco was attached to the front and wagons loaded with passengers' cars at the back. An equally massive 1943 4-8-2 steam loco looked on from the adjoining garden in which it had been planted.
Boarding time, and I was shown into my 2-berth compartment where Elliot Ryser was already installed, so of course we then had to to start talking. He turned out to be another companion of great interest: American, from Burlington, Vermont. Elliot had been on a week's conference in Perth, a conference on (of all abstruse subjects) listeria research. My limited knowledge of the subject - the worries we had about the cattle being affected in the first year we made silage - interested him; at least to the extent that he was probably pleased to find anyone who had even heard of listeria. Once again, perhaps Marion should have been there to discuss the subject more deeply.
He first came into the research work in 1982 when the mysteries of listeria were only starting to be investigated, and he has since spent three years writing a 900-page book on the subject - in fact the only book on the subject. He was now taking a holiday on his way home from the conference.

To go back to the train journey: the compartment was on one side of the central corridor only, so with a view to one side only, which gave a rather cramped feeling. Two comfortable seats, and beds which were pulled down later from the end and from the ceiling, such that one slept lengthways along the train rather than the usual sideways of a normal compartment. The whole layout of the coach was peculiar: Each compartment had a double-curved wall on the corridor side, so the corridor is a series of curves as you might expect it to look if coming back late from the bar at bedtime.
There was also a pleasant club car with views to both sides, and a restaurant car. Free tea and coffee and biscuits were available continuously from the attendant's compartment, which made life very pleasant; but once again no opening windows anywhere. I will go on mentioning that whenever the opportunity arises.
The journey to Adelaide commenced at 1:35 pm and the 24 coaches and 3 car transporters started cruising along at 45-55 mph for the next 41 hours. Each passenger was provided with a good map, commentary and time-table of the journey.
We were soon in the Avon Valley National Park, an area of scrub-land and eucalyptus trees and swathes of bright blue flowers, reminiscent of linseed: 'Paterson's Curse', as I later discovered in New South Wales.
Elliot pointed out the blackboy plants, curious bush-like trees with a mass of spiky leaves sticking out directly from the trunk, with only the bottom two feet of the trunk visible. He knew all about these as he had been on a wild flower tour the day before. He also showed me a photo of the kangaroo claw flower which I was pleased to see as I had taken photos of it myself in King's Park that morning, the most exotic looking flower that I had seen. Later we emerged into flatter country and soon the Western Australia wheat belt: vast fields of ripening wheat.
When we explored as far as the club car we found a much more spacious atmosphere and we sat there instead, talking to two Australian ladies who had their car on the back of the train having previously driven from Melbourne to Perth.
It had been a good sunny afternoon with blue sky flaked with high white clouds after a cloudy morning, and later a lovely evening light over the plains and the foreground gum trees, increasing in loveliness as the sun set.
We sampled the restaurant car supper, a great steak for A$10 (5 pounds) with a 'help yourself' salad, with melons, grapes and strawberries to follow (also DIY), and of course the everlasting free coffee.
10:30 pm and we stopped for an hour at Kalgoorlie, the old gold mining town (there still is a little). The advertised bus for a town mini-tour did not arrive, so I walked down the main street as far as the huge Woolworths store; a very wide, almost deserted street, space being the most obvious product of the town.
Bedtime, and the two beds were almost instantly produced from their hiding places. I was lucky to have the lower one and enjoyed the most perfect bedside view that I can ever remember, or hope to have. While lying in bed I could look out and see the view of the passing countryside in the light of the almost full moon, like a continuous moving film strip. I could not try to go to sleep for some considerable time. Eventual sleep was unaccompanied by the 'd.d..d.d...d.d..d.d' of previous trains. I noticed next day that the track is continuously welded rail; a move into a more modern world.

Tuesday, October 10th
A morning for a lifetime.
Lying in bed and watching the sun rise over the Nullarbor Plain as we cruised eastwards on the longest straight railway in the world. The horizon was visible for the whole 180 degrees of our side of the train. Clouds low over the eastern horizon obscured the true sunrise, although higher clouds were lit up by the golden glow from beneath. Perhaps 10 minutes later, just after 5 am, an orange brilliance appeared between layers of cloud, disappeared again for a few moments and finally the sun rose above and shone forth brilliantly.
I couldn't help remembering a similar sunrise when we were camping on one of the 'sand seas' in the middle of the Sahara desert 20 years ago, where nothing but sand lay between us and the horizon for 360 degrees around us.
But this plain was covered in short grass with just an occasional small bush, and red sandy earth. From time to time a short mast with solar panels at its feet, and once a few houses and a notice announcing 'watering point for steam locomotives'. A pity that we did not need to stop here. But then only half an hour later clouds appeared over half the sky and the sun no longer shone. Someone saw a wedge-tailed eagle on a rock; I missed it, but I did see one later, and the first kangaroos. This eagle is the largest in the world and the only one in Australia. It is used as a sort of symbol of the Indian Pacific train and appears on the side of every coach.
Grasses on the plain do vary from time to time, often a sudden division between one colour dull green and a slightly different colour dull green. Another feature is the occasional short pole with what looks like a nest on top. Apparently they are old telegraph poles left for eagles to nest on, when the overhead telegraph lines were abandoned.
We passed a huge hole in the ground, perhaps 100 yards across; a 'blow hole' somebody called it. I had not realised that this is caving country. The rock is a sort of pinkish limestone, dolomite in fact, and caves beneath it are said to be connected with the sea some 80-90 miles away; and this blow hole does often have a cold draught emerging from it.
7 o'clock was breakfast time, another help yourself spread, taken with Elliot, Fiona from New Zealand and an Australian lady, both good talkers; Fiona had been trans-Siberian 15 years ago; there have been great improvements since then, it seems. At 9 came a stop at Cook for watering the train, but not (sadly) the engine. Cook is a large village of railway workers with its own hospital (5 beds), school and jail (2 cells). A two hour stop, with a lone walk for me along the track for three quarters of a mile straight (of course) into the distance and then at right angles into the desert for 500 yards and then back through the tufty grasses and sandy soil. A few flowers, chiefly an everlasting white helichrysum type daisy, but no snakes or lizards which must be around somewhere. It was nice to be allowed this little taste of the desert. It became very hot during the time here, with a cloudless sky again.
A commemorative plaque recorded the planting of a row of trees 30 years ago, by 'Men of the Trees' from Perth and Adelaide, and there they were, just a few of them, all that were left of a gallant 600. Even 'Men of the Trees' had failed to afforest the Nullabor Plain. I bought several post cards of the train to send to all those who might be interested. For lunch I made do with my imported supplies, plus the free coffee, biscuits and cake service, while others went to the restaurant car again. I had this in my compartment and switched on the radio to find a pleasant concert of 'New World' symphony, 'Jesus, joy of man's desiring' and other pleasantries. About one and a half hours after leaving Cook, came the end of the long straight, all 297 miles of it, and the end of the Nullarbor, and the start of sandhill country - low hills formed of top soil blown off the plain and covered with bushes and small trees, mostly eucalyptus again. A bit later I listened to the 'in train' recorded commentary of this section of our route, full of railway, geographical and historical interest. At 4 pm we reached Tarcoola and saw the new line to Alice Springs curving away on the left. About half an hour stop there but no getting out. That evening we had to put our clocks forward one and a half hours. To be done again by half an hour between Adelaide and Melbourne. Half an hour seems a bit pernickety to me, affecting as it does just the one time zone.

Wednesday, October 11th
We were woken up at 5:15 to prepare for a 6:30 arrival at Adelaide. Our berths were now on the west side of the train so we missed the sunrise while we were getting up, but we saw the moon setting instead.
Several people got out at Adelaide including Elliot, and Fiona who was continuing with me to Melbourne that night. She and I walked into the town after leaving our rucksacks at the station for the day, the station being at Keswick, over 2 miles to the west of the town centre.
First to the Post Office for some information gathering then a short free bus ride round the town centre while waiting for the tourist information office to open. Then she booked up for a whole day bus trip to the Barossa Valley, to visit wineries, and found that the bus departed there and then. We had already arranged to meet Elliot at mid-day, so I said I would do that.
I found out that I could conveniently visit a railway museum in the afternoon, and meet her again at 5, so I had the rest of the morning to spare. I found a leaflet on the 'Adelaide O-Bahn' which looked interesting; and was. The O-Bahn (a German invention, Oberbahn presumably), is a trackway for buses, or 'busway' as it is called here. I did not know that one actually existed, and certainly not in Adelaide. So I found out where to catch a bus that used it. It was just an ordinary looking bus in one of the main streets; when it got quickly out to the edge of the town (easy enough in uncrowded Adelaide), it diverged into a special bus lane which turned into a concrete road with raised edges; the driver took his hands off the wheel and speed shot up to 60 mph. This busway led pleasantly through a rural setting, grass and tree-lined scenery away from ordinary roads. As we reached the first stop (or station) it became a road again and the driver steered the bus alongside the platform. The next station, where I had booked to, was a major interchange where other more ordinary buses were waiting. This was Paradise! All set in pleasant parkland.
The busway roadway was merely two concrete strips for the bus wheels with a gap all along the centre. The bus is fitted with horizontal rollers which use the raised edges of the roadway to guide the vehicle.
I returned the same way and proceeded to the tram terminus; a complete transport contrast from ultra modern to almost antique. Victorian design single deck two-coach tram sets run the 12 miles from the town centre to the seaside suburb of Glenelg, and is the only tram route left in Adelaide.

It was at this terminus that we were due to meet Elliot at midday. I failed. I waited in pouring rain and a thunderstorm, under cover, for over 20 minutes without any sign of him, and then left to catch my intended train out to Port Adelaide and the railway museum. This train started from the old central Adelaide station, the centre of the local railway system of the Irish 5' 3" gauge. Much of the gauge history of Australia has a touch of Irish illogicality, but in the case of S. Australia the man who had the decision to make was indeed Irish, hence the 5' 3" gauge. This was a highly satisfactory train for viewing purposes, as one could see out to the front from seats beside the driver's cab.
We were soon passing alongside and over the specially constructed standard gauge line that the Indian Pacific had used to get me to Keswick station that morning. A 20 minute run out to Port Adelaide and a 5 minute walk to the museum. Many interesting locomotives and coaches and wagons with good information, but not always well lit or easy to read.
Had I seen one of the locomotives before? I found a 2-8-2 loco apparently in working order, built by the North British Locomotive Company in Glasgow in 1950. Now it was in 1950 that I visited the North British works and I remember seeing a brand new locomotive all ready for shipping out to Australia. So quite possibly, yes I had. This locomotive is being restored for use on special trains. It was raining again here. Fiona had lent me her ample coat which proved exceptionally useful.
Back in Adelaide I had an hour or so to wait for her, but when that time came her coach had not returned, I waited half an hour and then decided I would have to abandon her, and started walking back to Keswick station. I bought a hot steak and kidney pie to eat while doing so; very enjoyable. As I was approaching the station a shout from behind came from Fiona. She had arrived back soon after I had left, and must have run all the way to the station. We did then still have half an hour to spare, but only a few minutes before we were allowed aboard.
This train was the 'Overland', Adelaide to Melbourne, another extension to the standard gauge system, having been opened only five months before. We had 1st class sleepers (there was no option), but this merely meant one bed in a similar small compartment to the two berth ones we had on the Indian Pacific.
Is this the last time I would ever lie in bed watching a moving panorama of scenery passing by outside? On the Indian Pacific someone asked me one afternoon: "don't you want to join in watching the movie on the video?" I replied, "I'm already watching the great Australian movie; through the window."

Thursday, October 12th
Arrival at Melbourne at 8:50, after a grey dawn and a breakfast brought to my bedside at 6:30. Why so early?
Today it was a very nice change to have the prospect of being met by somebody and being expected, and we were very pleased to find Charles Perry outside the station, with a car to greet us (not that he was expecting Fiona too). He took us first to his office and then left us to our own devices for the morning and arranged for me to meet him again at lunchtime. Fiona and I did some exploring and acquainted ourselves with the public transport system. She was staying for 3 nights.
We also visited various landmarks like the Arts Centre, Cathedral, the statue of Burke & Wills, the riverside Garden and the Parliament building, in which we were allowed to sit in the public gallery of the State Legislative Assembly. All very interesting, but the morning's debate was so boring (whether the office of deputy mayor should be abolished) that ten minutes was quite enough in which to absorb the atmosphere, the chamber, the speaker, the mace and all the paraphernalia of the House of Commons. Very few members present.
A cup of cappuccino and cake in a Thai (!) restaurant sweetened the morning, and finally I left Fiona and arranged a meeting the next morning for a day trip in her hired car. Back to Charles' office, and he took the afternoon off to take me home. We had established that Nicole was out, so we stopped at a seaside restaurant at St. Kilda Beach for a bit of lunch and more cappuccino. When we did get to his house, not far from the beach in Brighton, Nicole was in fact there, so it was nice to meet her too. Charles and I then went for a good long walk on the sandy beach with strong wind, but very pleasantly warm with some sun (there had been a fair amount of rain in the morning). A most pleasant change from trains with closed windows.
Then back to tea and Georgina (6 years old), who had just come home from school. She wouldn't have tea with us, but did become pleasantly sociable later. The evening was spent largely discussing my journey, and Nicole's of many years ago when she spent 11 months hitching lifts from England to Australia by way of Turkey, Iran and India. She is now an interested trans-Siberian candidate, but I did advise her that it was not entirely suitable for Georgina at the moment, although Melbourne to Perth might well be enjoyable for them all.
I rang up Marion at about 7 pm for the first time and found her at home at 11 am. I was pleased to hear that nothing had happened at home (no disaster or untoward events that is), and they were all well and happy. So I had a very good and comfortable night, the first in a proper house for nearly a month.

Friday, October 13th
Breakfast with Charles before leaving at 8 to drive back into Melbourne and meet Fiona at the Avis garage, where she had hired a car for two days; and this time a successful meeting.
She and the car were waiting for us. So goodbye to Charles and off for the day outing that Fiona was determined to do, and sounded interesting for me too, despite the distance. 120 miles north to the Murray river and the port of Echuca, a three hour drive along motorway and good roads and over the Great Divide (almost unnoticeable hills).
Echuca is the home of the remainder of the once extensive fleet of paddle steamers, that used to trade and fish and transport logs on the Murray; and these we duly found. Several of them all plying for hire for one hour trips or longer. We booked for one of these but as the boat approached the landing stage we realised it was not a steamer and had the obvious noise and smell of a diesel engine. This seemed to lose the whole point of the day's expedition for me, and we were relieved when the ticket collector on board agreed to refund our tickets in full, and also directed us to the only genuine steamer running that day. There are in fact only three steam engines capable of working. A pity that the diesels still have P.S. before their names.
This meant a further wait, and time for a pasty lunch in a bar, and viewing the horse-drawn coaches and cabs, the steam traction engine being restored and the various old taverns, workshops, shops, wharves and railway station of the old 19th Century town. Our steamer, the 'Pevensey', was worth waiting for. As soon as we went on board the sight and characteristic smell of the steam engine were immediately impressive. Quite a small boat with side paddle wheels, gear driven by a portable steam engine; portable in the sense that it was not built into the boat and could be lifted out and used for some quite different purpose if required.
I soon got talking to the old engineer in charge. He knew a great deal about all the world's paddle steamers, including of course the 'Waverley', the only surviving sea-going paddle steamer in the world, that still plies the Bristol Channel, South Coast and the Clyde. He was most interested that I came from the haunts of the Waverley and had actually travelled on her only a few months ago. He was Geoff Corrie, who had spent his whole life in and around Echuca, but Irish three generations ago. He took me down into the stokehold to watch the firing of the boiler with wood (1 ton of wood required for 6 miles of steaming), and into the cargo hold where 100 tons of wood, wool, flour or anything else could be carried.
Our one and a half hour cruise down the Murray River passed between steep sandy banks with the tangled roots of the red gum trees showing through, and stratifications showing various heights of water levels. On the quaysides were marks showing the various dates of the flood levels, the highest being some 30 ft. above the present river level - a paddle steamer had once been stranded in the main street of the town. We also passed an outrigger barge which transported logs by floating them alongside tied to beams projecting from the sides.
The three steamers include the oldest wooden-hulled paddle steamer still in existence - the 'Adelaide'; the most modern Echuca paddle steamer - the 'Alexander Arbuthnot', and the one we were on, the 'Pevensey', which had its original 1912 Marshall steam engine still working.
By this time Fiona was taking our only photographs, as my camera had failed in putting in a new film (winding mechanism completely inoperative).
On the 30 foot high quay, (all made of wood of course) was a state boundary marker, 'Victoria - NSW', not in the middle of the river as you might expect. So I found myself actually entering New South Wales for a short time a day earlier than expected.
At the end of our voyage we had to make an immediate getaway. Our three hour drive back would then leave me two hours for my train, and this in fact worked out exactly, despite the slow approach to Melbourne in the rush hour. We then had an 'eat' in a Savlouki bar, a Savlouki turning out to be a meal in a paper cone - a meat and vegetable concoction, wrapped in pasta and then in paper, which was eaten held in the hand like a cone, all very awkward, but delicious and filling.
Then to the station where we happened to meet our coach conductor from the Indian Pacific, who was just about to work his way back to Adelaide and Perth. There was a slight hiatus on boarding the Sydney Express when I found my seat occupied, and my name not on the conductor's list. A visit to the booking office found that I had been booked (according to their computer) for the following day, but there was one spare seat available so I was allowed on board. The only booking snag of my journey. My new seat was next to yet another Chinese contact, a boy who had been living in Sydney for 15 years, but had also lived in Beijing, so we discussed Beijing and China and Chinese trains (in good English). I was a bit apprehensive of having merely a seat for a whole night's journey, and it was a bit miserable trying to find a suitable position in which to get to sleep.

Saturday, October 14th
New South Wales.
The fine 5 am sunrise greeted my first official sight of NSW, and here it was at last, all over the place; we had in fact entered the state at midnight at Albury. A winding journey down through the green hills through tunnels; and a small breakfast from the buffet car. The seven-coach train travelled at 70 mph, an express indeed compared to anything else since Cologne.
Campbelltown was the first stop I was aware of, with a line-up of double decker suburban coaches outside the station. Everything clean and neat and bright in the morning sunshine.
I was having difficulty in getting used to this strange land of unexpected places: where Campbelltown, Liverpool, Applecross, Armadale, Brighton and Beaumaris appear in illogical confusion. I was no sooner turning my thoughts to the head of some loch in Scotland, than I found myself down on the South Coast of England. So I tried to convince myself that I was now firmly in New S. Wales, Australia. But it was difficult; we then passed through Regent's Park. I was wondering when Vauxhall would appear again. Then it was Sydney Central Station at 6:50 am and time for a first look round. I took a metro train to Circular Quay, which stopped in full view of 'that' bridge and 'that' opera house on either side of the quay, looking just as they have in all the pictures seen over the years.
Walking towards the bridge could well be compared to the Tyne Bridge at Newcastle. But as I got nearer it was obvious that this one was twice the size (the Newcastle one was only a model after all); but there was no lift up the tower from water level; a visit to the top of one tower, or 'pylon' as it is called here, is possible from bridge deck level, but not till later in the day.
I travelled on the monorail, for the sake of updating my travel experiences. This runs overhead for a short circuit of the Darling Harbour area, curving and dipping over streets, harbour and the backs of buildings at roof level, and in some places only 20 ft above the street. An 'amusement park railway' as someone once called the Docklands light railway in London. Rather too short a circuit that doesn't really go anywhere useful, not even to Central Station. Merely a novel way of overseeing one of the less interesting parts of the city.
Then a train to Gosford at 10:47, travelling on the upper deck of one of those double deck coaches I had seen earlier. Perhaps the most scenic of all my journeys, and the last. Once out of the main suburbs through Strathfield and Hornsby we came to the Hawkesbury River which we followed for some way between high wooded hills, then crossed it by a long bridge, up through more high hills and bushland and through a long tunnel, and down to the sea at Woy Woy. Then numerous small stations as we followed the 'Central Coast', with the sea or lake always in sight, north to Gosford.
A pleasant waterside end to my journey, to compare to my waterside start down the Tywi estuary from Carmarthen, now 12,000 rail miles away.

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