That’s not to suggest there was nothing that caught the eye, particularly at the stops to pick up a station mail bag halts, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. At one of them, around lunchtime, Madam’s eye was caught by colourful patches of red wildflowers, while a bit further along she sighted a solitary cow moving steadily towards the stationary train as if intent on making a rendezvous.
At least that was the way it seemed from where we were sitting.
After some time, however, the vegetation started to gain a little height and before long we found ourselves in scrub high enough to cut off the view to the horizon, though I didn't note much in the way of intervening hills until the Blue Service was called for dinner and I repaid the previous night's shout with a decent bottle of tempranillo.
Dinner time took us into Kalgoorlie, and with a three hour stop scheduled there was nothing for it but to hoof it around town for a while, an endeavour that encouraged by a significant diminution of the on-board hospitality.
Throughout most of the journey, with the external doors secured, there was little need to lock cabin doors and so on, but with the lengthy train stationary on the outskirts of a substantial city there was the possibility of petty larceny and other forms of mayhem, so once the train had been divested of its passengers it went back into lockdown with two doors and a similar number of hospitality outlets open.