If you need to get to Sydney from Melbourne, then fly. Most Australians do. I say this even though I hate flying. Flying is more comfortable (as long as you are not having a panic attack), much quicker and, on top of this, cheaper. The train is wobbly and slow, not unlike the train ride we had taken through Java in Indonesia, though that train at least had much more entertaining company by way of train jumping merchants selling everything from ginger beer to batteries, and aisle dancing she-male entertainers singing 'a-wallah-wallah-wah, ah-wallah-wallah-wah'. None of that on this train though. The only people on it are retirees. Sorry
if that seems ageist, but my mood was tarnished by this experience,
not only because for the first time that I can think of I became
train sick, but also because of my fellow passengers.
Though
I selected to go first class for this trip as it wasn't that much
more expensive, and the carriage quite sparsely populated, my queasy
state wasn't helped by the never ending conversation between two
biddies sat behind me. Though they had never met before, they both
seemed to be trying out for the Olympic endurance conversation team,
and they had plenty of nothing to say to eachother, telling not very
interesting tales about people one of them knew but the other didn't.
One of the voices was more dominant and carriage penetrating than her
opposite number, but the quieter rival had a special weapon of being
able to make long slow 'oooh yeeesss' sounds, thankfully not in the
ecstatic sense as this would really have sent me over the edge, but
in the nodding your head slowly sense. She had exquisite timing, as
she was able to make these sounds just as the louder one was
beginning the sentence she was already agreeing with. Class act, I
tip her to dip in for the Gold by a nodding head length...
After
six of the eleven hours of the journey had passed, I had to change
seats and the rest of the journey was more peaceful, if still a
little queasy.
For
long journeys like this, the passengers are invited to check in their
luggage which gets put into a secure baggage carriage. When we
finally arrive at Melbourne, a baggage handler lays out the suitcases
in a neat line, while a queue forms at the top of this line. I can
see my suitcase at the front, but I assume that the queue is there
because there will be some sort of checking process where the luggage
is matched against our tickets. I am wrong. When the handler nods his
head to signal that he has finished, the orderly queue melts into a
slow scramble of people picking out their bags. Have elderly
Australians got some misplaced and bizarre nostalgia for communist
bloc disciplines? Actually, I don't think that's it. I suspect that
it is that us Brits have always thought of ourselves as the world's
best queuers, but the Aussies want to beat us at everything nowadays.
I
realise it is me who may appear to be the old git.
Ceri
is on hand to collect me at the train station. We get to their place
in Richmond at about 7:30 in the evening and drink a couple of the
bottles I had left there in March after my wine tasting adventures in
the Clare Valley.
My
travels are at a point of hiatus, as I will be taking this
opportunity to stay still for a couple of weeks.
No comments:
Post a Comment