Outside it was obvious that there'd been rain while we'd been inside. It had been raining steadily for the preceding couple of days and that the train's arrival had coincided with a brief break in the weather. Remembering that, we were probably stretching our luck a bit when the second rendezvous resulted in a decision to take a stroll along the banks of the Torrens, but the weather held off while we completed a circuit that brought us back to the new panda-motivated entrance to Adelaide Zoo.
By that time it was about the target I'd set for a taxi back to Parklands, where the sight of the terminal sans train would have had a drastic effect on the equanimity of those prone to panic attacks.
The explanation for the absence was fairly straightforward. Up to Adelaide, the train had been configured one way, and while we were off doing our Adelaide thing the carriages had been rearranged. To this point we'd been looking off to our left and looking towards the direction of travel. Now we were sitting with our backs to the engine, though the outlook was still to the left, which was now the northern side. It's obviously all done with mirrors.
At least the change meant that previously mentioned issues with the setting sun would now be a thing of the past, though that fat old Sol had well and truly gone to bed when the Indian Pacific rolled out of Adelaide.
With a number of new passengers on board I wasn't sure whether existing dinner arrangements would stand, and wasn't keen on being forced to switch to the early sitting, but no one came to discuss the matter, and when the Red sitting was called I set off for the Club Car with a view to seeing whether there'd be a chance of snaffling a free glass or two at the Blue Sitting Welcome Reception as well as the odd pre-prandial snifter.
That may seem uncommonly like freeloading, but once the glasses had been distributed, an inquiry from the new Hospitality Manager (they'd changed over in Adelaide) as to the makeup of the crowd in the Club Car revealed that newbies were rather thin on the ground.
Maybe that explained why there weren't any refills.
Dinner for the Blue Sitting wasn't due till nine, but I managed to kill the time in conversation with the couple we'd met over lunch (Madam was catching up on things in the cabin, with sleep a significant agenda item) and when I set off to advise dinner was on the horizon Gavin slipped a rather good bottle of Peter Lehmann Shiraz into the dinner mix.
As a result, while I wasn't quite walking on my knuckles when we toddled off to bed around eleven I didn't take much rocking.