General Chat

OH and I have recently completed a rail and sail holiday from Perth to Adelaide and back to Perth Fremantle.

The following is based on diary enteries made during this epic journey and which we managed to smuggle past our guards.

The great day dawned at last.

OH and I had been looking forward to this day for some time; our ‘Rail and Sail’ Holiday. Two days on the Indian Pacific train from Perth to Adelaide, two nights in Adelaide and then a nice six day cruise back to Fremantle. No need for passports, all journeying done in Australian territory.
What is the saying about expectation not living up to reality?

I had always thought that The Indian Pacific was so called as it linked the Indian Ocean (Perth) to the Pacific Ocean (Sydney). Not on this one!!

We arrived at the Railway Station and immediately registered ourselves and our baggage. Proudly, we displayed our tickets for the ‘Gold’ class service, looking down on those lesser mortals who could only afford the ‘Red’ class travel.

Then came the announcement, “All passengers travelling on the Indian Pacific may now board. Would those passengers travelling Gold Class please board first”

Joy and expectation turned to despondency and utter disbelief. There at the platform stood a goods train!! As Gold Class passengers were herded on to the roof of the goods carriages, a further announcement was made advising that due to the current financial situation, some economies had to be made to the service.

By this time it was too late to try to rectify the matter, or even obtain a refund. The Red Class passengers were already clinging on to any exterior hand and footholds for dear life.

This was where the ‘Indian’ part of the name arose; the train now looked like a provincial express leaving Mumbai. The Pacific part was that no one would talk (S)Pacifically about food

Turning to the OH I advised her to look on the bright side: two nights under the stars and a forecast of fine weather. I actually saw the stars sooner than anticipated and where she found the space to swing her arm with such force I never did find out.

And so the adventure began. The wind in our hair, the sun on our skin, the sand in our eyes.

Meal times were very hit and miss affairs. We had to rely on the sympathy of residents of the homesteads adjacent to the track who would throw food to us. This was most welcome, and it wasn’t until sometime later that we found that these kind hearted spirits were actually throwing the food at us, not to us. For every passenger knocked of the train, the locals received five points which could be redeemed at the local pub. Hence the description of hit and miss.

This torment only ceased when we were crossing the Nullarbor, as residences became an infrequent novelty rather than a constant nuisance.

Two days later, having suffered many privations, we finally arrived at Adelaide and slithered off the carriage roof onto the platform. “Well,” says I to the OH, “That was a novel, but interesting journey!”

I still refuse to believe that it was my OH that hit me with the piece of 4x2. She’s normally such a placid person

At last we reached our Hotel, and here things improved considerably during the daylight hours provided you kept the curtains drawn.

The hotel was situated at the start (or finish, depending on your direction of travel) of Hindley Street. All cities have areas like this one, some much worse and some only slightly worse: Kings Cross in Sydney, Northbridge in Perth, Soho in London. You will probably catch my drift! Within a few hundred metres of the Hotel were several s*x shops and a few str*p clubs, with pubs and nightclubs filling the vacant spaces in between.

It was at night when the problems began. Loud music, screams, moans. We asked to be put in a quieter room and were transferred to one at the front of the Hotel. This room was double glazed.

This eliminated, or at least reduced, the music noise, but as for the screams and moans these continued unabated. At length, the night manager pounded on our door and told us that if we didn’t quieten things down considerably he would have no option but to report us to the Police.

Suitably chastened, OH and I decided to sleep.

Then the Sunday dawned when we were to transfer to our ship for the voyage back to Fremantle.
.
The excitement! the joy!; all of which turned to terror when the Meat Wagon arrived to convey us to our ship.

Pausing only to collect other poor souls signed up for the same holiday, and to deliver various grades of offal to certain shadowy establishments (it was an offal journey) we finally arrived at Port Adelaide.

To be continued

Allan :-D :-D :-D

Yes Ann?

:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D

Waiting for the next installment :-)

Possibly tomorrow, Ann. It's very traumatic to talk about it as the wounds are still so raw :-0

lol :-D

:-D :-D loving the sound of this holiday, :-D :-D

I'm sure Allan, I'm sure.

Hi Ingrid. I hope that you are not from Adelaide :-D

Magic :-D :-D :-D :-D

:-D :-D :-D :-D

Ann!!....Would I tell fibs??? :-D

That was a rhetorical question, by the way.

Well you had a good start to your hols then Allan.
Hope it got even better :-D x Barbra

lol Barbra :-D

Loving it cant wait for the rest. :-D

Its all good Allan, I am from Sydney so was thinking of trying your trip from this side to see if it was as good. lol :-D

Hi Ingrid. In all seriousness I believe that the Indian Pacific is cutting back on its services. Too much competition from cheap airfares.

I actually enjoyed the train trip although the sleeping compartments are on the small side with, believe it or not, fold away toilets and wash basins in the en-suite bathroom.

The trip across the Nullabor was boring but the scenery on either side was magnificent

* tries to imagine a fold away toilet* :-D

lol Ann. The absolute truth.

The bathroom of the hotel we sayed in in Afdelaide (although situated as described above) was bigger than our entire sleping compartment on the train :-)

Pt 2 Our voyage begins

There, the Captain of our vessel must have taken pity on us for he greeted us and said that he’d be delighted to show us the galley.

Having spent at least two hours amongst the rotten meat and dark, shadowy, entrails, it was nice that the Captain had such a confidence in his shipboard kitchen.

Now, I may be slow and have an IQ that sometimes slithers off to sleep under a rock, but even I could not help but be taken aback!

There, between those two magnificent cruise ships, m/v ‘Rapture of the Deep’ and the m/v ‘Good Ship…’ (I couldn’t see the rest of the name as it was obscured) was our……..Galley??

You had to peer over the quayside to see it, but nevertheless, there it was
The top deck had two masts, then there were three lower decks, whose portholes appeared to be without any glass.

“All Right!” barked the captain, “Get them on Board”. At this command the rest of what we presumed to be the crew appeared. What a motley bunch! Between them they had fifteen wooden legs, several hooks for hands, enough eye patches to service the full crew of the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ film series, and a dead parrot.

More than anything else, this last really engrossed us.

As we stared at this pitiful object, our embarkation became another hit and miss affair.

The passengers hit the deck, having been assisted over the quayside by two burly members of crew who did not believe in gangways or other devices to assist in boarding, but did believe in the power of gravity.

Next followed our luggage: this totally missing the deck, or any other part of the ship, and was soon floating out to sea on the tide.

One brave soul, who had recovered from his rapid descent to the deck sooner than the rest of us, asked about the allocation of cabins, adding that he wanted an outside twin.

The captain merely grinned and said that all the accommodation had an outside view, however it was more of a group thing than an individual style of sleeping.

Alarm bells started ringing, and as the Galley didn’t appear to be serviced by electricity, these must have been in our heads.

Then the accommodation was allocated.

“Lower Deck: middle deck: upper deck”

“Lower Deck: middle deck: upper deck”

This litany continued until all passengers had been accounted for and accompanied by the crew to their new quarters. This was not easy, for as we descended and entered our quarters the light grew ever less and we were constantly impeded in our progress by spars of timber.

The next thing we knew was that we were being chained to said spars: women next to men and men next to women in a random pattern.

Under other circumstances, and if you were into that sort of thing, this could have been most enjoyable. However, now we were filled with an unholy terror as the full implications of our situation dawned on us.

I was chained next to a veritable harridan, a shrew, whose language would make a sailor blush and give even a fishwife pause for thought. Only as my eyes grew used to the stygian blackness of the deck did I recognise my OH!

I thought it diplomatic not to remind my wife that it had been her idea to come on this cut-price holiday. One of my wife’s redeeming features is that she never goes to sleep on an argument. One of her less redeeming features is that she can go several days without sleep!!

more to follow