It doesn't take three hours to walk round downtown Kalgoorlie, and temptation to roll into a convenient waterhole, sink a couple of beers, then return to the train with replenishments probably accounted for the warning that bringing grog onto the train was verboten, something that hadn't been mentioned when I looked at the possibility of bringing a couple of bottles of wine with me for the purposes of in-cabin consumption.
Kalgoorlie presented as a town that had done very well for itself thank you towards the turn of the previous century, with buildings of a similar style to those we'd sighted in Broken Hill. There weren't many locals on the streets, and while that was more than likely a function of the hour on a Monday night (ten o'clock on a Saturday evening may have been a different matter) I suspect the modern mining twelve hours on, twelve hours off, alcohol and substance testing rigidly enforced ethos was a significant factor. A series of commemorative pavers revealed Kalgoorlie as the birthplace of Walter Lindrum, the Bradman of the billiard table, and a number of other sporting identities, most of whom none of our party had ever heard of. Given Madam's background that was hardly surprising but many of them were footballers, Gavin and Lynn were from Victoria, and we were presumably talking AFL. It seems footballing fame didn't necessarily spread eastwards in the pre-Eagles and Dockers era.
I was also quite taken by the wording on this delicatessen store front. Presumably, in the owner’s mind, classification as gourmet precludes the culinary traditions of Italy and South Africa. Now, there may be a case for the latter, but Italian?
Having negotiated our way back onto the train the ladies made their way to the cabins while Glen and I headed for our Club Car in the vain hope of finding it open for business. We were about to call it a night when we were joined by a young bloke I'd sighted with a camera and tripod at various junctures over the preceding few days. He'd been carrying a copy of Uncut magazine just before we'd gone in for dinner, and a brief conversation revealed that he, like Hughesy, was a regular reader of Mojo. After Gavin called it a night we sat discussing musical matters for a good hour before I decided that uncertainty about what lay over the horizon in Perth meant that it wasn't a good idea to continue sitting up and talking music. Still it was one of the most enjoyable conversations I've had for many a year. Talking Derek Trucks, Little Feat, Captain Beefheart and Forever Changes with a young bloke in his twenties or early thirties on the Indian Pacific. Who'd have thought?