Premier Class - Cape Town to Johannesberg

Subtitle -Where are the Elephants?

I had long heard of the famous Blue Train from Cape Town to Johannesburg and in planning the trip it seemed an opportunity too good to miss. I soon discovered that there were two major problems and a possible minor issue. The train turns out to be very expensive and secondly it doesn’t run very often, and oh yes it seemed to go to Pretoria and not Jo’burg. Well I could suck in and ignore the expense, you only have one ruby wedding trip but try as I might I could not make the dates fit to my schedule. I then discovered Premier Classe that runs on the same line but ends up in Jo’burg. It was much more reasonable but claimed to give everything that the Blue Train gave. While I somewhat doubted that the web site did make it look pretty good. It ran twice a week and I could fit into the schedule. The Prenier Classe it would be.

Now you are probably thinking its going to be a disaster, especially considering the performance we had gone through that I related in an earlier post, but no it wasn’t. The train was absolutely fine, comfortable accommodation a more than helpful crew and very reasonable meals with some OK wines. But for other reasons it was in some ways a little disappointing.

The problem is that South Africa is a big country with dramatic and impressive and often beautiful vistas and panoramas to view. But what was dramatic and beautiful when you first saw it turns a little boring after 2 or 5 hours. This wasn’t so bad the first day as there was the initial excitement followed by welcoming drinks followed not so long after by lunch. The there was the first stop at Worcester where you could get out and stretch your legs and actually really view the train, a great purple snake, for the first time. The countryside seemed to be changing at this stage between wild and untamed country and country that was being farmed with either livestock or crops. We saw enormous fields being harvested for cereals and the surprise for me was the very larges acreage of vines. We seemed to take an awfully long time getting passed these vines. Then there were the mountains. I had always thought that Table Mountain was pretty unique. Wrong again. There are lots of flat topped mountains. Then there was the sun setting and the change of colours and the colour of the sky and then darkness followed by dinner and then to some very comfortable beds that had been made up by the staff as we ate. Really not bad at all. I guess it was the following morning after waking up,, having breakfast one was pretty much ready for the journey to end but in fact there was another four or so hours to run. If you walked the train you could see everybody was packed and sitting quietly ignoring the scenery which by his time had turned into a very flat huge expanse of land and I think it was this that just took the edge of the trip.

For me, however there was a second reason. For some reason I had got it into my head that we would see some game. I did not expect to see the big five but perhaps some zebras or gnu or well something. I kept saying to Marion where are the Elephants? She had no such illusions of seeing game. “On the game reserves, you are not going to see anything. Whatever gave you the idea that you would see something?” I couldn’t answer that but I didn’t give up on my false hope. If the train stopped it was because the Elephants were crossing the line, or if we went through a tunnel then the Elephants would be at the far end when we emerged. So the Elephants or the lack of them became part of the trip. Actually I am pretty certain I saw one just before I turned into bed.

In the end, after some 27 hours we arrived in Jo’burg and after a little problem met up with our hotel limousine and we were soon signed into our hotel for the night, The Grace Hotel in Rosebank.