Avon Valley

About an hour out of Perth, we began traveling through the Avon Valley, which my tour book described as “nestled in the Western Australian wheat belt.”   The scene outside my cabin window reminded me of California.  We followed the Avon River for much of the morning, shaded by gum trees and with a backdrop of cut brown grass. Pretty, but not exactly how I had pictured the Outback.

I had begun settling in to my cabin.  It had two comfortable seats, facing one another, with a fold-down table and a window between them.  In one corner was a narrow cabinet with hooks to hang clothes, and in the other a very compact but serviceable sink and mirror.  Under the sink was another cabinet in which to store things. By the time our Train Manager arrived, I had unpacked my knapsack and stashed toiletries and clothes away.  Deb Munn introduced herself and asked if I had any questions; since I had heard her describing the location of restrooms and showers, the parlor car and the dining room to other passengers, I said no.  She located my meal schedule card from the stack of material on my table and helped me fill in my preferred times as they were available.  I signed up for the 9:00 breakfast shift, so when she moved on I began heading for the dining room, along with others from the same car. On the way, we passed through four other sleeping cars, some with double bedded cabins, others with twins, several with en suite bathrooms.  At the end of our car, just past a restroom and two showers, was a 24-hour coffee and tea bar; I took note of that for the next morning.  I like my coffee as soon as I wake up.

The Parlour Car

Each dining table seated four people.  The three other women and I who ate together that first morning got along well, and we for the rest of our journey we usually ate or explored together.   One of our group was from Sweden and one from Japan. Our fourth companion lives in Adelaide.  She had just taken the train to Perth and was looking forward to the return trip.  Being our resident “expert,” she pointed out some of the other features of our rolling hotel when we returned to our rooms later, including our Train Manager’s office, which was filled with colorful balloons to celebrate her 33rd anniversary working for Indian Pacific.

Our breakfast choices were healthy and tasty; that’s all I remember because we were so busy talking to one another.  After breakfast we sat in the adjacent parlour car, which was essentially a traveling lounge, with comfortable chairs, some of which swiveled to optimize your view or your ability to face fellow passengers.  We were of all ages, perhaps more with grey hair than other colors, but the conversations involved young and old and a wide variety of topics.  Coffee, tea, wine, beer, and spirits were available from the bar, and throughout the day baskets of fresh fruit, nuts, and crackers and cheese appeared on the cocktail-sized tables.  After an hour or so we returned to our rooms and I fiddled with my technology.  I plugged my charger into an outlet over the sink so I could charge my iPad and iPhone, which I was using primarily as a camera.  While they charged I wrote postcards and read about Kalgoorlie, where we would be stopping late that night. Soon it was time to walk back through through the four carriages to the parlour car and enjoy a glass of wine before lunch:  Cod with creamy mashed potatoes and mushy peas, with a  fruit plate for dessert. Oh yes, and another glass of wine, this one a Clare Valley Riesling. What a life.

I could see from our schedule that this day would be a long one, so after lunch I stretched out with my feet on one bench and the rest of my body on the other and took a nap.  Before dinner I tried out the hot spot that Mark had set up on his Australian smartphone, and discovered that I could use it to provide connectivity to my iPad .  The connection was sufficient for me to read my online students’ papers and grade them.  There were still three more weeks left in the fall semester, so that was good news.  I spent the rest of the afternoon alternately looking out the window and grading student papers.  Not too surprisingly, I fell asleep again and awakened only when I heard my neighbors opening their sliding doors and heading for dinner.  From the dining room I saw that the scenery had changed.

The red soil of central Australia is iconic.  Among other things, it has been exploited by journalists and considered by scientists as a potential Mars double. According to Joanne C Wittstock, a minerals and petroleum geologist, red rock and soil stains are common in arid environments like South and Central Australia. They are typically iron oxides, commonly known as rust, and they result from atmospheric oxygen and what little moisture there is oxidizing the iron sulphides in bedrock. Very little water washes the surface, so the iron oxides are not washed away. The result is red sand, soil and stains on outcrops.  Some of our fellow passengers called the soil pindan red.

Of course I had to Google the word, and I learned that pindan is actually the name given to the red-soil country of the south-western Kimberley region of Western Australia, many miles north of our route.  The term comes from a local language and originally applied both to the soil and to the vegetation community associated with it.  Even with the difference in vegetation, I suppose pindan could apply to the red soil in the Kalgoorlie region also, in a colloquial fashion.  I didn’t care what it was called; I just enjoyed looking at the color and the changing vegetation as we traveled closer to the gold fields.  This is much more how I imagined the interior of Western Australia would look.