Unending train ride

Sunday 19th November 2006

9:00am
We arrived at the train depot, all packed and ready to go. Everyone's excited. Our first ever train ride in Australia! Dad unloads us and our carry-on luggages from the car, and drives off to park his car on the train. We enter the depot- looks big. I sit down on one of the seats with my brother, watch over the luggages (apt to walk away by themselves when unwatched). My bag pack was starting to weigh me down. WHAT did I pack again? Oh- nothing but solid gold bars I believe.

10:00am
Waiting for the train to arrive! Church service started 1 hour ago... I get up and walk around, looking at all the train models and information on which carriage and train was built in which era, blah, blah, blah... (not my kind of thing)Getting so bored. The second hand slows down. One minute seems an hour. I grab at the closest magazine, which happened to be a spotlight catalogue on the december sales! (I failed to bring a book because the only ones I hadn't read yet were soft covered, and I was afraid of damaging them- yeah, I'm THAT nice with my books.) :D Wait.

10:30am
Wait.

11:00am
Wait. I spend my time tracing out bus routes from my house to UWA. (They have the bus maps and timetables there.) Wait.

11:30am
Finally! The announcement to board the train sends us all packing. I lug my gold bar filled bag pack along, and board the 3rd class carriage right at the back of the train. The interior setup looks much like the economy plane setup, except that the chairs are bigger. My seat number happens to be an aisle chair. Some other lucky dude got the window seat! I hope that no one comes, so that I get both chairs to myself.

12:00pm
Train leaves the Perth station. An elderly man got the window seat beside me. awwww... Now I can't even take pictures out of the window- not that there's anything to take, really- my last resort out of utter boredom.

1:00pm
I start writing. I fill in all my interview forms, explaining why I want to do music, why I picked this course, and what background experience I have so far. Once done, I pick up writing my story. I don't get to far, however, as my brothers (they can't sit still!) want to go to the lounge room to play cards and have lunch. Sigh. I have to go or be dragged there. I'd rather walk there with my dignity.

2:00pm
The movie starts! At least there is something to occupy me (and my brothers too)! It's some story about catwoman and beauvalline cream or something like that. The cream that, if you keep using, your skin will be so beautiful, but turn hard as marble, but if you stop using, will scar your skin for life. What trash. But I enjoyed the 'fighting scenes'. :)

4:00pm
The movie ends. Have to find my own entertainment. We discovered that we didn't bring a pack of cards! So, no scum. Grrr. We played Uno and Quiddler instead. Fast forward >>>

7:00pm
Dinner time. Bread, tuna and cucumber- again. We just had that for lunch. Mum must have brought the entire tuna section of coles along.

8:00pm
So bored. Nothing to do. My body feels weird too. I've ben cooped up too long. Walking from our carriage to the lounge on the next carriage doesn't give one enough exercise for the day.

8:30pm
Another movie. This one is more interesting. It's called Take the lead, I think. It's about the life of a professional ballroom dancer, Pierre Dulane, teaching his art to the public school's delinquents. No one thought it would work- even the students. The motivation and success only came with the dancing competition only a few weeks away. I liked this video better than the other.

10:20pm
We arrive in Kalgoolie after one exhausting day of travel. We don't get to go out, however, as Dad feels badly, and has thrown out all over the shower area. Yuck. I'm definitely not going to shower in the train. He looks so pale- even worse than me.

12:00pm
I fall asleep lying down, since my fellow passenger on my row went out to catch a bus tour to see the famous Kalgoolie SuperPit. (Since my family's been there before, we decide to stay in.) He came back in, and I woke up- my first proper sleep. i was lying down on his seat too! Lights off, and journey begins again.

Monday 20th November 2006

2:00am
Ooooh- my neck and shoulder hurts. CRRRACKKK! ouch. Check time- huh?! Only 2am!!! awwww..... doze off.

3:00am
Same procedure as before

5:00am
Same procedure. The train is still dark.

6:00am
Lights on. People rushing for the wash room. Including me.

7:30am
Breakfast. Bread and fruits. We've run out of tuna. :O

8:00am
Games. It gets boring after awhile, so we watch the train assistants out of the corner of our eyes to see if there is going to be a movie or not. No. nothing happens.

9:00am
Games. Fast forward>>>

1:00pm
Lunch. I know- it's such a boring existence. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. Games in between. I believe studying would be much preferred, actually.

1:30pm
Games. I have to take care of Daniel. My parents want to sleep. Children have the tendency to become positively hyper when told their parents want to rest! No exception with my brother.

2:30pm
We arrive in Cooke town! It's a boiling 49 degrees out here! I took a few steps outside to snap a picture shot, and then beat a quick retreat back to the cooling confines of a train. This time, the duration of the stay in Cooke is only long enough to refill the train's tank of water and petrol. Nobody wants to stay out there in this heat!

3:00pm
Movie time! This time we watched a really cute cartoon called 'Hoodwinked'. Very enjoyable and interesting. :)

5:00pm
Movie ends. Everybody feels horrible. Everywhere aches and hurts, and we are all sick of the games. Nevertheless, we enter the living room to play Uno. There is a Duech family on board the same carriage as us, and we invite them -the kids- to play. Their english is limited, but we have a lot of fun trying to converse with the improper sign language, and broken english. This is definitely the best part of the entire train ride. Another boy, Alex, sees us having all this fun, and decides to join in, so we let him. He is actually 6, tall for his age, and quite intelligent. But his mother spoils him too much. He sits down at our games table, and munches 2 huge snickers bars by himself while playing the Uno with us. After that, he tells his mum that he wants another snickers bar:

Alex: Mum, I want another Snickers.

His mum: After dinner, Alex.

Alex: I want another Snickers!

His mum: No alex, after dinner.

Alex getting really whinny: But I want another Snickers NOW!

His mum: I said after your dinner!

Alex: I want it NOW!!!!!

The mother remains silent, and I thought she won the battle of wills until after she leaves and returns with another bar of snickers! We are trying not to gape at them, while gaping at them. I don't believe it! The mother is overfeeding the already fat child! A 6 year old child looks like a 9 year old! He reminds me of Augustus Gloop in Charlie and the Chocolate factory, with the same temperement as Veruca Salt. Unbelievable. As I said before, Alex is smart. Only the is stuffed so full of sweets that he cannot possibly think! Ugh, some parents...

Anyway, when Alex leaves for his dinner, we quickly catch the opportunity to go back to the carriage with the Deuch family. They teach us some common duech words by pointing and gesturing to objects around them. Hilarious. Me must have roused the whole carriage with laughter.

Alex returns, and while I try to be friendly to him, I guess the others don't really. They just put up with him, and so when he asked the boy of the duech family to play with him and got the answer no in reply, he positively threw a tantrum, and went into one of his sulking moods. His mum petted and comforted him as best she could, but he only got out of it when I got Samuel to shift over so he could squeeze in the same chair as him.

One meets VERY interesting people while travelling.

7:00pm
Dinner! We actually get to eat in the dining car! I decide to get roast steak, and nat, rice and beef! Samuel chose something else. The serving is small for the price, but I guess it's like that, whether train or plane.

9:00pm
Movie time again. I found this movie soooooo boring though. To begin with, the tv screen that was closest to me didn't work, so I missed the beginning of the show while a train attendant fixed it. And secondly, I didn't get the plot of the show. It's about some filming of a cop. Eddy Murphy acted as the cop in Showtime, but I didn't really like it. Boring.

11:00pm
I can't bear to spend the thought of enduring another night! ugh.... I finally doze off. One doesn't actually fall asleep on a train, one dozes off and on.

Tuesday 21st November 2006

1:00am
Wake up and doze off

3:00am
Wake up and doze off

5:00am
Wake up and CAN'T doze off. Everyone is rushing for the washroom again, so I hurry, and am one of the LAST- I know, despite all my efforts!- to use it.

6:00am
We finally arrive at our final destination, Adelaide, after a tiring 2 and a half days journey. Still, the train ride is not over. We still have one more going back... *groan*



Yes, this is exactly how our train looks like. Our carriage is the 2nd last. Very scenic and varied view, huh? :P