The Country Link, Melbourne - Sydney

We got off to an early start and beat the Melbourne rush hour thanks to my cousin Clare. we were looking forward to another train trip, hopefully one similar to The Overlaander. Unfortunately, this was not to be. The Overlander was an event, this was just another railway journey, a twelve hour one at that, and just to keep it completely authentic it started some 40 minutes late. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a bad trip and we weren't bored, it just wasn't The Overlander.

The first class carriage was more normal and while we had enough room we did not have the spaciousness of our last journey. The service was good, but not personal. The announcements were fine but not informative of general points and certainly not witty, and horror of horrors there were no power points.

The countryside for the first nine alternated between rolling hills to flat plains, from predominantly stock raising to arable farming, from harvesting cereal crops to hay making. One thing is for sure, Australia has some wonderful farming country. There were cattle in belly high grass and sheep almost lost completely in the tall grass. There were horses all over the place, some alpacas and even a camel. There are some great Australian farmers who put their plastic coated round hay bales in neat rows and patterns, just right for a somewhat compulsive obsessive who is only happy when his clothes are hung on identical hangars and they are all facing the same direction.

We were intrigued by the early 20th century architecture of all or mostly all of the stations on route bringing back memories of some Aussie films and art. Oh yes, why have many of the horses got coats on in the height of summer? Must be the flies I guess. There was one incongruous vision of a white horse in the middle of a large golden coloured field with a pink coat on. And then there was always the fields in many shades of gold and yellow and some times a little green, pock marked by gum trees or stands of gum trees, the occasional dry creek and the omni-present man made water holes in the stock fields.

About three hours from Sydney the countryside changes to be more hilly and wooded. It also looked as if it might have more residential houses for perhaps weekenders from Sydney. Certainly, there seemed to be some affluence around.

As the light faded so to did the wooded hills and gradually we started to move through the outer suburbs of Sydney, first residential and then light industrial through to a full urban environment. We were always well informed of the times but they were always accompanied by "due to circumstances beyond our control'. No accountability there then, and then we finally rolled into Sydney central station an hour late to find all the taxis gone, but thats another story.