Adelaide to Perth

To save time, we skipped to chance to continue on the Ghan down to Adelaide, and instead took a Qantas flight over the vast salt lakes of South Australia. In Adelaide we took advantage of the hospitality of Richard's childhood friend Ian, who's in town in the week as a IT contractor. Here we spent a relaxed couple of days taking advantage of the copious restaurants in this attractive city.















One of the main draws of the area is the Barossa Valley. Having not been much of a fan of Australian wine so far I was open to being converted and duly piled into a minibus for a day's tasting tour. Unfortunately the wines we tasted did little to change my mind. A few of the more expense reds were decent enough but the rest were far to rough or sickly sweet for my palate (two of the elderly guests bought up six bottles of Wolf Bass Riesling, which tasted like boiled sweets). Nonetheless, it was not an unpleasant day trip and going on an organised tour solves the problem of having a designated driver.















We were back on the train for the next leg of our journey – this time the Indian Pacific to Perth. Given this is an two night trip we treated ourselves to a two berth cabin. Although hobbit-like, the beds were actually surprisingly comfortable.














The highlight of the trip is crossing the Nullarbor Plain on what is the longest stretch of straight railway in the world running for 478km. This is a predictably desolate area with nothing to be seen from the train for the entire day except a fleeting glimpse of camels and a kangaroo. We made a brief stop and Cook, a now deserted railway staging post. This gave a chance to soak up the desolation, only to be shared with the other hundred or so train travellers and of course the flies.














In the evening we stopped at Kalgoorlie-Boulder. The Lonely planet promised a wild west style mining town with buxom bar staff serving up beer in their lingerie to tattooed miners. Rich was rather disappointed that the only bars we found were actually very civilised. After a couple of drinks it was back on the train for a bumpy night's sleep and a morning arrival in Perth.