East to West, and North to South by train in Australia
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We arrived on schedule and disembarked the train at its East Perth terminal station.
The crew heads back to Adelaide the next day, so their work-week is a solid one. They were mostly very young, and from a wide variety of backgrounds.
At Cook, I was ushered back on to the train by a bloke who worked our carriages who told me he was from Nepal, arriving here only a couple of years ago. I joked that there'd be no chance they could build a railway in Nepal which had a 500km straight section, and he agreed with me. But he did say that the railway was coming to Nepal.
I asked him if it was coming from the Chinese side or the Indian, and he told me it was coming in from both directions. Imagine taking a run on that line from India into China through Nepal!
He was just one of several crew-members with an obvious Asian background, and all seemingly first-gen, but all with sufficient exposure to Australian mores to be open to the quirks and character of the train's passenger demographic, hailing as it did from those born in the 1950s and even earlier.
The end of the ride and the dispersal of the passengers was a bit of a muddle, though, it seemed to me.
There was little advice provided on the train as it drew near the terminal as to how the dispersal procedures would operate. There were passengers looking for their next rides milling all over the place. Instead of train crew knowing much or assisting, the harried and disparate staff of the multitude of bus transfer companies attempted to provide guidance.
I sought advice about from where my transfer would be located from a number of train staff to be pointed in different directions, and on each occasion when dealing with the poor passenger-wrangler from that bus, pointed elsewhere by that official.
Signage would improve things, as would a centrally-located passenger information desk.
I was unable to locate my transfer and so took a taxi for the ride into my Perth CBD hotel. The ride wasn't expensive, and the streets were surprisingly deserted for an Oz capital city at 1530h on a Saturday, so I was quickly in to the hotel's reception. As my taxi pulled up, I saw another maxi-taxi vehicle disgorging several passengers I recognised were my recent fellow-riders, so maybe they hit the same obstacles as me, or maybe that was also to have been my transfer vehicle.
I met up with family that Saturday evening - two of my sister's daughters and their families live in Perth.
Now it is Sunday morning, and I'll catch up with some political analysis on "Insiders", thankfully broadcast live in WA at 0700h as it's a 0900h program at home in the east, so saving me two hours.
And then it'll be time to research how to get to Cottesloe Beach for a toe-dip in the Indian Ocean!
The crew heads back to Adelaide the next day, so their work-week is a solid one. They were mostly very young, and from a wide variety of backgrounds.
At Cook, I was ushered back on to the train by a bloke who worked our carriages who told me he was from Nepal, arriving here only a couple of years ago. I joked that there'd be no chance they could build a railway in Nepal which had a 500km straight section, and he agreed with me. But he did say that the railway was coming to Nepal.
I asked him if it was coming from the Chinese side or the Indian, and he told me it was coming in from both directions. Imagine taking a run on that line from India into China through Nepal!
He was just one of several crew-members with an obvious Asian background, and all seemingly first-gen, but all with sufficient exposure to Australian mores to be open to the quirks and character of the train's passenger demographic, hailing as it did from those born in the 1950s and even earlier.
The end of the ride and the dispersal of the passengers was a bit of a muddle, though, it seemed to me.
There was little advice provided on the train as it drew near the terminal as to how the dispersal procedures would operate. There were passengers looking for their next rides milling all over the place. Instead of train crew knowing much or assisting, the harried and disparate staff of the multitude of bus transfer companies attempted to provide guidance.
I sought advice about from where my transfer would be located from a number of train staff to be pointed in different directions, and on each occasion when dealing with the poor passenger-wrangler from that bus, pointed elsewhere by that official.
Signage would improve things, as would a centrally-located passenger information desk.
I was unable to locate my transfer and so took a taxi for the ride into my Perth CBD hotel. The ride wasn't expensive, and the streets were surprisingly deserted for an Oz capital city at 1530h on a Saturday, so I was quickly in to the hotel's reception. As my taxi pulled up, I saw another maxi-taxi vehicle disgorging several passengers I recognised were my recent fellow-riders, so maybe they hit the same obstacles as me, or maybe that was also to have been my transfer vehicle.
I met up with family that Saturday evening - two of my sister's daughters and their families live in Perth.
Now it is Sunday morning, and I'll catch up with some political analysis on "Insiders", thankfully broadcast live in WA at 0700h as it's a 0900h program at home in the east, so saving me two hours.
And then it'll be time to research how to get to Cottesloe Beach for a toe-dip in the Indian Ocean!
Today was a day on the rails, including a trip to Freemantle (Freo in Oz) with a stop along the way to put my feet in the Indian Ocean.I'd recommend a trip to Freo if you had a day in Perth. It's a half-hour train ride away from the main Perth station. Even today, operating a Sunday/Public Holiday timetable, there were trains throughout the day at 15minute intervals. That seemed to be the case on each of the five main lines in the Perth suburban network.
I had a valid old-man's card issued by my home State, and this qualified me for the concession rate on fares. A full-day, all-modes ticket cost me just $5.40. My WA equivalent would pay nix for weekend travel, as do I in Melbourne.
So wet-feet accomplished, I continued my journey to Freo and had a bit of an amble about.
Freo is Perth's port city. It was also the major arrival point for the vast bulk of immigrant ships from settlement to the advent of mass plane travel in the 1960s. Many immigrants decided to depart their ships here after having already been weeks at sea (months in the days of sail).
I always felt dudded by our migration because we were amongst the first to be sent by plane (a Boeing 707) in a westerly direction over the USA and the Pacific, rather than by sea south and east via Africa and the Southern Ocean. My school-friends who were also migrants from the UK had stories to tell about being on board a ship for six weeks, and having seen lots of the world.
I had a story of the 707 stopping for about 45 minutes at a time in New York, San Fransisco, Hawaii, and Fiji, before it disgorged us in Sydney for another flight to Melbourne. It was a poor one by comparison.
I will get over my disappointment soon, I hope.
The line to Perth skirts two sides of the Freo docks and provides a wonderful view of harbour activities.
The opening photo is of a motor-boat heading up the Swan River towards Perth through the docks.
On my return to Perth, I decided to run the length of the Mandurah line, about 70kms to the south.
I'd also recommend taking that line, at least for the first few stations to Bull Creek. That section hugs the Swan River as the line runs up the central reservation of one of Perth's major freeways. It is picturesque because of the views over the river, but also for the large and expensive houses on view through the windows on the opposite side.
It's a little rocket, the Mandurah train, easily exceeding 110kph as it overtook the traffic on the freeway which was restricted to 100kph in the faster sections.
The line goes past one of Perth's universities, as well as a major oil-handling facility at Kwinana. It terminates after its route takes us through large tracts of coastal vegetation as well as one section well-populated with grass-trees, once commonly known as Black Boys.
I sought to camera-capture some, but was unsuccessful given the speed we were travelling at. I'll see if I can find an image from elsewhere.
There is little to recommend the Mandurah terminal station. It didn't look like shops and services were nearby. But it was obviously a transport hub with buses and car-parking galore. But that didn't matter, as the train was off again on the return journey within about ten minutes.
I'd also recommend taking that line, at least for the first few stations to Bull Creek. That section hugs the Swan River as the line runs up the central reservation of one of Perth's major freeways. It is picturesque because of the views over the river, but also for the large and expensive houses on view through the windows on the opposite side.
It's a little rocket, the Mandurah train, easily exceeding 110kph as it overtook the traffic on the freeway which was restricted to 100kph in the faster sections.
The line goes past one of Perth's universities, as well as a major oil-handling facility at Kwinana. It terminates after its route takes us through large tracts of coastal vegetation as well as one section well-populated with grass-trees, once commonly known as Black Boys.
I sought to camera-capture some, but was unsuccessful given the speed we were travelling at. I'll see if I can find an image from elsewhere.
There is little to recommend the Mandurah terminal station. It didn't look like shops and services were nearby. But it was obviously a transport hub with buses and car-parking galore. But that didn't matter, as the train was off again on the return journey within about ten minutes.
I made sure I was back in my hotel so I could see my football team, Melbourne Victory, play its Finals game live from Sydney.
There's now only 15 minutes to go and I figure we won't win.
Victory is 5 - 0 down.
Tomorrow, earlyish, I'll be departing for Perth airport for the flight to Darwin. It'll take around four hours to travel the more than 2,600kms. There's a time-change involved as Darwin shares its time-zone with Adelaide, 90 minutes ahead of Perth.
I should be in my new hotel by mid-afternoon, and ready to explore the tropical north. There are no suburban rail services, not even light-rail, in Darwin, but there are plenty of bus-routes.
There's now only 15 minutes to go and I figure we won't win.
Victory is 5 - 0 down.
Tomorrow, earlyish, I'll be departing for Perth airport for the flight to Darwin. It'll take around four hours to travel the more than 2,600kms. There's a time-change involved as Darwin shares its time-zone with Adelaide, 90 minutes ahead of Perth.
I should be in my new hotel by mid-afternoon, and ready to explore the tropical north. There are no suburban rail services, not even light-rail, in Darwin, but there are plenty of bus-routes.
Followed your trip with much interest. Enjoyed all your photos, and side notes of conversations with fellow passengers, was even able to keep up with the verbiage. A lot of Australia reminds me of California, especially Nortnam and our foothills. Thanks for letting us enjoy your vacation.
I thought there was a rail line going South to Katherine.
There was a line which went south of Darwin to a little south of Katherine and terminated there.
In the 1960s and 1970s at least, it was mostly used for the iron ore mined in the vicinity to be taken to Darwin wharf and loaded onto ships for export.
The line was subsequently made standard-gauge, had its route changed to go much more westerly, and extended (I think in the 1980s) and now runs that way from Darwin to Adelaide - the line I'll be on for The Ghan. In its previous guise, the old Ghan ran on narrow-gauge tracks between Port Augusta and Alice Springs in Australia's red heart. It was run by Commonwealth Railways, a publicly-owned and operated business.
There was never previously a line north of Alice to connect to Darwin until recently. The passenger and goods trains which run the line are not in public ownership.
There is no direct link between Perth and Darwin, although I will cross an area in which there are several privately-owned mining lines (some involving great distances) taking minerals from their inland mines to ports on the WA coast. None are linked into any statewide network.
That clears that up, Thanks.
I loved this full-page ad in today's West Australian newspaper in which a commercial TV station's current affairs show proposes to ask the state Transport Minister how best to resolve freeway overcrowding in Perth.And showing the answer in the photograph they use to illustrate the problem!
Do you reckon some people are just too silly to be credible?
I mentioned it's a 15 minute service on Sundays and Public Holidays.
It's a three-minute service on weekdays. With that sort of timetable, you don't need a timetable!
With service like that, I'd only drive if I had a compelling need to have my vehicle downtown with me. I lived in Seattle for years. I bicycled or took the bus to work and grocery store, and mainly used my vehicle to get out of town on weekends.
Toes in Timor SeaAs I was taking this shot, a small ray, with what I reckon was about a 50cm wingspan, darted by me to my left. It initially gave me a bit of a start, but the water was so clear I quickly identified it as a non-worrisome member of Australia's aquatic life, and then watched as it sped away.
Beautiful!
I left you in Perth in the west, but now I am in Darwin in the north.
Virgin domestic took me there in a flight lasting around three-and-a-half hours, most of it across the WA desert. I had booked early enough to select a window seat in what proved to be a chokka plane, and I was looking forward to enjoying a real-life geography lesson. The forecast was for clear skies the full distance, and so it proved.
The first half-hour after leaving the Perth conurbation was through grain country. The paddocks were relatively small by current day standards, likely pegged out in the 1920s or later when mechanisation was considerably less developed, and so keeping field sizes manageable was the driving force.
(I checked the flight-path later and saw that we overflew Northam, through which the train had rolled only a couple of days later, pretty much in a straight line to just west of Wyndham on the mightly Ord River and the coast, before a last leg across the Bonaparte Gulf, a half-right, then into Darwin from the north-west.)
But soon, and abruptly, the grain-country became wild country - untouched by road or paddock, just sparse forest with dried creek-beds, red soil, and white salt-pans.
I got into conversation with the passenger to my left. He introduced himself as Terry. He told me he was on his way to Darwin as part of a journey he regularly took from his home in Bunbury, south of Perth by two hours, to Melville Island, off the coast of Darwin for his job in forestry. He'd be there for a fortnight, working 12-hour night-shifts, before he'd make the return journey home for seven days off.
That working pattern affects a number of primary industries operating in remote parts of the country. The workforce is known as "Fly In, Fly Out" or FIFO for short. It predominantly is in the extraction industries of WA and Queensland, mining and oil, and seems to work for many people. It means only basic housing and catering need be established for the remote workforce rather than something more permanent and family-friendly.
Bunbury, you'll recall, was the destination of the first inter-city train I'd photographed at Perth station. Terry said his wife drove him the two hours to Perth, Virgin would take him to Darwin, and then a charter would fly him to Melville Island. His first shift was later that same evening.
Terry operated a piece of falling equipment which grasped the tree-trunk, sawed it close to the ground, then rotated the tree ninety-degrees to the ground. He said he was harvesting a pine species, planted there about 40 years ago, and also drops an acacia species.
I think he was glad to discover I had a bit of a knowledge and understanding of forestry which I explained I'd got because of my previous work for a state government agency which looked after issues affecting public land, including forestry. Our department managed hardwood native forest (various eucalypt species), as well as softwood plantation forest (pinus radiata mainly).
Terry had a spell working in the south-west of Victoria, an area of softwood plantation forestry I knew well.
And it turned out we had more in common still. Terry was born in Burnie, on Tasmania's north-west coast and started his forestry career there. I had worked for a year in Tasmania's south-west helping build a dam for the state's Hydro-Electricity Commission. I was aware of the great amount of planning which had gone in to allowing the harvesting of a high-value timber called Huon Pine, a prized old-growth species which produces a very fine-grain timber. I had been in the area where this was happening. The country from which this timber was being extracted would soon be flooded as a consequence of the dam I was working on. I was but a lowly carpenter's labourer.
Remarkable as Terry's story was about travelling about 3,000kms for his commute, it was the fact that there was a forestry industry on Melville Island which surprised me. That it could support a FIFO workforce, and a 24-hour operation, floored me.
I like learning new things.
Melville Island is one of a pair - the other is called Bathurst Island - which, together with some smaller ones, forms what are known as the Tiwi Islands. The local Indigenous people are the Tiwi, quite culturally different from their mainland and more southerly cousins.
I reckon most of us here in Oz couldn't point to Melville Island, even if they knew it existed. But Melville is the second largest of the Australian islands after Tasmania, but a tenth the size of the Apple State.
Leave Tasmania off the map of Australia and you are likely in big trouble. But Melville and Bathurst Islands' absence escapes comment.
Terry's working year however is seasonal. As Dawin is so far north, just 12 degrees off the equator, it has a tropical weather pattern of a monsoon season (the Wet) and a dry one. We're in the Dry at the moment. You can guarantee it won't rain for a few months, and that each day will be sunny and around 35C, with nights in the low 20s and high teens.
The Wet is another story indeed. The temperatures stay high, but the rain is heavy and incessant and the nights are hot and humid.
Darwin isn't much fun in the Wet, and most outdoor activities in construction and off-road have to come to a halt. Terry's job does not exist in the Wet.
(The Indigenous people identified six seasons, a fact now becoming a little more understood and appreciated, compared to the binary system the incoming settlers hit on.)
My conversation with Terry meant that the flight was over quickly, and I disembarked, found a way to my lodgings, and spent an evening with some family-members still living in Darwin.
The following day I had an amble around Darwin before it got too hot, and called in at the NT Parliament which was in session. They were debating a Bill relating to fracking. Whe I arrived, I spotted the member making his speech was the long-term Independent Gerry Wood who I'd met on a previous visit to Darwin to referee the football at the Arafura Games, as he was then still also an active referee (as well as being an MP).
Then I used my Victorian old-man's card to obtain fare-free travel on the Darwin bus system by which means I found the beach at Fannie Bay in which I did my Timor Tea toe-dip.
It was time to get things organised for the next day's early morning departure to the Darwin terminus of The Ghan, a bit out of town, and requiring some logistical management by the train's operators.
Virgin domestic took me there in a flight lasting around three-and-a-half hours, most of it across the WA desert. I had booked early enough to select a window seat in what proved to be a chokka plane, and I was looking forward to enjoying a real-life geography lesson. The forecast was for clear skies the full distance, and so it proved.
The first half-hour after leaving the Perth conurbation was through grain country. The paddocks were relatively small by current day standards, likely pegged out in the 1920s or later when mechanisation was considerably less developed, and so keeping field sizes manageable was the driving force.
(I checked the flight-path later and saw that we overflew Northam, through which the train had rolled only a couple of days later, pretty much in a straight line to just west of Wyndham on the mightly Ord River and the coast, before a last leg across the Bonaparte Gulf, a half-right, then into Darwin from the north-west.)
But soon, and abruptly, the grain-country became wild country - untouched by road or paddock, just sparse forest with dried creek-beds, red soil, and white salt-pans.
I got into conversation with the passenger to my left. He introduced himself as Terry. He told me he was on his way to Darwin as part of a journey he regularly took from his home in Bunbury, south of Perth by two hours, to Melville Island, off the coast of Darwin for his job in forestry. He'd be there for a fortnight, working 12-hour night-shifts, before he'd make the return journey home for seven days off.
That working pattern affects a number of primary industries operating in remote parts of the country. The workforce is known as "Fly In, Fly Out" or FIFO for short. It predominantly is in the extraction industries of WA and Queensland, mining and oil, and seems to work for many people. It means only basic housing and catering need be established for the remote workforce rather than something more permanent and family-friendly.
Bunbury, you'll recall, was the destination of the first inter-city train I'd photographed at Perth station. Terry said his wife drove him the two hours to Perth, Virgin would take him to Darwin, and then a charter would fly him to Melville Island. His first shift was later that same evening.
Terry operated a piece of falling equipment which grasped the tree-trunk, sawed it close to the ground, then rotated the tree ninety-degrees to the ground. He said he was harvesting a pine species, planted there about 40 years ago, and also drops an acacia species.
I think he was glad to discover I had a bit of a knowledge and understanding of forestry which I explained I'd got because of my previous work for a state government agency which looked after issues affecting public land, including forestry. Our department managed hardwood native forest (various eucalypt species), as well as softwood plantation forest (pinus radiata mainly).
Terry had a spell working in the south-west of Victoria, an area of softwood plantation forestry I knew well.
And it turned out we had more in common still. Terry was born in Burnie, on Tasmania's north-west coast and started his forestry career there. I had worked for a year in Tasmania's south-west helping build a dam for the state's Hydro-Electricity Commission. I was aware of the great amount of planning which had gone in to allowing the harvesting of a high-value timber called Huon Pine, a prized old-growth species which produces a very fine-grain timber. I had been in the area where this was happening. The country from which this timber was being extracted would soon be flooded as a consequence of the dam I was working on. I was but a lowly carpenter's labourer.
Remarkable as Terry's story was about travelling about 3,000kms for his commute, it was the fact that there was a forestry industry on Melville Island which surprised me. That it could support a FIFO workforce, and a 24-hour operation, floored me.
I like learning new things.
Melville Island is one of a pair - the other is called Bathurst Island - which, together with some smaller ones, forms what are known as the Tiwi Islands. The local Indigenous people are the Tiwi, quite culturally different from their mainland and more southerly cousins.
I reckon most of us here in Oz couldn't point to Melville Island, even if they knew it existed. But Melville is the second largest of the Australian islands after Tasmania, but a tenth the size of the Apple State.
Leave Tasmania off the map of Australia and you are likely in big trouble. But Melville and Bathurst Islands' absence escapes comment.
Terry's working year however is seasonal. As Dawin is so far north, just 12 degrees off the equator, it has a tropical weather pattern of a monsoon season (the Wet) and a dry one. We're in the Dry at the moment. You can guarantee it won't rain for a few months, and that each day will be sunny and around 35C, with nights in the low 20s and high teens.
The Wet is another story indeed. The temperatures stay high, but the rain is heavy and incessant and the nights are hot and humid.
Darwin isn't much fun in the Wet, and most outdoor activities in construction and off-road have to come to a halt. Terry's job does not exist in the Wet.
(The Indigenous people identified six seasons, a fact now becoming a little more understood and appreciated, compared to the binary system the incoming settlers hit on.)
My conversation with Terry meant that the flight was over quickly, and I disembarked, found a way to my lodgings, and spent an evening with some family-members still living in Darwin.
The following day I had an amble around Darwin before it got too hot, and called in at the NT Parliament which was in session. They were debating a Bill relating to fracking. Whe I arrived, I spotted the member making his speech was the long-term Independent Gerry Wood who I'd met on a previous visit to Darwin to referee the football at the Arafura Games, as he was then still also an active referee (as well as being an MP).
Then I used my Victorian old-man's card to obtain fare-free travel on the Darwin bus system by which means I found the beach at Fannie Bay in which I did my Timor Tea toe-dip.
It was time to get things organised for the next day's early morning departure to the Darwin terminus of The Ghan, a bit out of town, and requiring some logistical management by the train's operators.
