Thursday, 12 August 2010
Bowen > Townsville
While it'd be going too far to suggest that Hughesy has a thing about trains I like rail as an option for long-haul travel. Sure, air is quicker, and definitely cheaper, but I've never liked or enjoyed flying. It's a means to an end, and not everybody's friend rather than an end in itself.
With trains, on the other hand, and particularly long haul trains, the means can be part of the end, and a couple of recent experiences have served to remind that there are options to flying apart from the long distance drive.
When Madam headed home in December ‘04 she flew Cairns to Kansai, while I made a much shorter hop in the opposite direction to the Gold Coast. From there, as far as Hughesy was concerned, the Tilt Train looked like the way to go on the return journey, and when I settled on board memories of earlier excursions from Roma Street came flooding back. The experience proved to be a civilized if expensive way of getting from Brisbane to Bowen.
Since the rail line follows a substantially different route (particularly between Bundaberg and Gladstone, Rockhampton and Mackay) to the all-too-familiar coastal highway the trip served as a reminder that rail travel is also a fairly good way to see the countryside.
Our visit to Japan in 2008 reinforced that reminder and served as an indication that there are certain comfort issues on a long-haul train that you don't get in Cattle Class on your average budget airline. The Shinkansen also brought in the speed factor, but that's something that's hardly likely to be inflicted on Australian rail passengers any time soon.
Still, the seven day Japan Rail Pass experience brought back memories of earlier, much slower trips between Brisbane and Rockhampton as a kid on his way to visit the grandparents or as an impecunious student riding the rattler between Townsville and Brisbane on mid-term breaks at the old Townsville Teachers College. Such trips were best done in a sleeper, of course, and while that was out of the question for financial reasons, there was an undeniably social aspect to travelling on the old Southbound Student Non-Express, stopping at all stations and quite a few places that weren't to allow swifter, more important traffic to pass.
All those factors combined to get Hughesy thinking of rail travel again, and once the financial constraints associated with paying off the Little House of Concrete disappeared I started thinking of a train trip or two and the fact that or two turned out to be the Indian Pacific and The Ghan would probably come as no surprise to anybody au fait with the options within Australia. There are others, of course, but when you're talking long-haul rail, those are The Two.
Madam wasn't totally convinced, but news that the Indian Pacific was celebrating its 40th birthday and part of the celebration involved a free upgrade from Red to Gold Class provided we were willing to book a couple of nights' accommodation and a tour in Perth was enough to persuade her that the idea was a goer, and the relevant bookings were duly made.
Of course, the fact that a mid-August departure coincided with the WA Wildflower season had nothing to do with it.
So, with a couple of months' pre-departure research in place Thursday 12 August saw us motoring to Townsville for the regulation stay at The Golfer's Motel with the obligatory two bottle tariff consumed over a barbecue dinner once Miss Behaviour had inveigled us into a bottle and a bit of a surprisingly acceptable Rosemount Semillon Sauvignon Blanc while we waited for our host to clear the nineteenth hole.
The main course went down rather well with a Pfeiffers 2006 Shiraz (abundant pepper on the nose and palate) and the Mitchell 2007 Peppertree Shiraz which, as expected, went down an absolute treat and saw us retiring to the cot suitably anaesthetised, rendering late night cogitations on the many and varied things that could go wrong unlikely.
