Indian Pacific - Day 1

Perth to Sydney, one of the worlds greatest train journeys of the world, from the Indian ocean to the Pacific, 4 days and 3 nights, 65 hours, 4352km’s, the longest straight stretch of railway in the world at 478 across the Nullarbor Plain, is approx. 3/4km long with approx. 25 carriages  and weighs approx. 1,375 tonnes. “The symbol of the Indian Pacific is the wedge-tail eagle, Australia’s largest eagle. Its massive two metre wingspan symbolises the epic journey of the Indian Pacific, the adventure that spans the continent.” (Straight from the onboard magazine, haha) So I made it with plenty of time before departure because I didn’t want to take any chances on missing the train. I try to never judge a book by it’s cover, but the first person I see is this lady sitting across from check in and she doesn’t look to mentally healthy, talking to herself out loud and whatnot. So I say to myself “I hope I am not sitting next to her” the whole trip. Well sure enough she is sitting right across the isle from me when I find my seat on the train, R47, a handicap seat at the back off the carriage with metal armrests and no pop-up dinner trays like the rest of the seats in front of us. On the other side of her is a fellow Canuck and we started chatting over her. She never joined in on the conversation and the whole time was not really acting appropriate to be comfortable around her. I felt bad for her but I could do nothing. I was told be my buddy Lenny that buying a pass for the “Lounge Carriage” was essential to a enjoyable trip ($25) and even more so now! In the lounge there is “free” coffee and tea, comfy chairs and just a great place to meet fellow travelers including, Rebecca a fellow Canuck who is a permanent resident of New Zealand. Adam from Perth, Fiona from England. The girl I was chatting with between the lady was named Pia, she was a bit of a weirdo herself but talked to the manager of the train, said she was worried about the lady(and her hygiene issues)  and they said she could have her own room. There were rooms that they hadn’t booked and were offering them to us(day/night red day seaters) for $150 per night. So this was one of the rooms she got, and there were two beds in a room so he situation being what it was and as friendly as I am I got to sleep horizontally!!! For two of the three nights!!! Sweet, eh! I had to be a little sneaky bringing my stuff into the room but it turned out A OK!!! We still had to stop at Kalgoorlie that night which is the largest gold mining areas in all of Australia and I am not one for tours but I spent the $30 to see the largest pit in all of OZ, the “Super Pit”!!! The tour was at about 11pm and the guide was an older gent who tried to to make the bus laugh at every opportunity he had! “Super Pit”, being 3km long, 1.4km wide and 330m deep was an impressive site at night with all it’s floodlights but I would have like to see it in the daytime still. Annual production for the mine is about 800,000 ounces of gold at about $1 billion!