Rail, NSW North Coast

I originally wrote the following two messages on a different, medical
newsgroup. Since then it has occurred to me that some here may find it
interesting.

Ignore the medical references, I was going to cut them, but they are
part of the story.

Befo

I grew up in the '50s and '60s when air travel in Australia was
expensive and rare for our family. I think my only flight was on a DC3
in 1955, before I joined the RAAF in '64 and discovered slightly faster
aeroplanes.

We were a far-flung family so I spent many nights on the trains in New
South Wales, on nearly all of the north and north-western lines. I loved
those nights, watching the little stations flash past, or stopping at
the "RRR" (Rail RefreshmentRooms) while the engine wheezed and the water
and coal were replenished. I spent many christmasses at my Grandparents'
house beside the shunting yards at Narrabri, watching fascinated as they
re-arranged the wheat, coal and goods carriages.

Now the short-sighted state government has decided to close our local
line. Local politics would mean little here, but I'm about as angry
about that as I can be. But that's a battle I can't win.

So tonight I'm off to the Big Smoke for a week or so, for a nostalgic
14-hour ride ride on the Murwillumbah to Sydney line before they let the
trestles decay and the sleepers rot.

See you all in a week or two.

Don't do anything you wouldn't want photographed while I'm gone :-)


After:

Thanks all who asked about the little journey to nostalgia. Therefore,
a brief trip report on a relaxed week away. Well, it started off brief,
and then got Topsy-like. So stop now if you haven't got an hour or two
to read it.

Departed, an hour late, about 11 pm, so missed most of the scenery
through the hills. I like watching the little stations flash past:
Stoker's Siding, Burringbar, Bilinudgel, Byron Bay, Mullumbimby,
Bangalow (where the palms come from, not BUngalow), Lismore and we've
only gone two hours with eleven more to go. It's this section,
Murwillumbah to Casino, that's closing.

Shared my twinette sleeper with an old Digger returning to Sydney who
had gone to Brisbane to march with his mates on Anzac Day (25th April).
90 years old, spry and alert, and diagnosed T2 two years ago. Fascinated
by my Accu-chek; he'd never seen a meter.

Broken sleep punctuated by lights flashing past and the doppler effects
of passing sounds. Woke at 2:30 am while we slowly shunted back and
forth on the bridge over the Clarence at Grafton as they changed engines
and crews. Nothing more silent and still than a river in the
half-moonlight. I grew up swimming in that big river, rowing fours and
butcher-boats, building rafts, catching bream and throwing back catfish,
square-dancing at the Jacaranda Festival.

More broken sleep through Glenreagh, Nana Glen (Russell Crowe's
farmlet), Coramba, Coffs Harbour, Urunga, Nambucca Heads, Macksville,
Kempsey. Woke up properly at dawn as we passed through the misty lush
green valley of the Manning River at Taree. Then the quiet farms and
hamlets through Gloucester and Dungog, the wine and coal country of the
Hunter Valley, Maitland, Newcastle. Spectacular scenery as we passed
through the central coast districts and Wyong, Gosford,
Broken Bay on the Hawkesbury.

Finally, into the urban sprawl of Sydney. Spent the next three days
using my ex-soldiers pass to travel on buses, trains and ferries around
the town like any tourist. Chinatown, Paddy's Market, Australia Square,
off to Manly on the ferry watching all the tourists happily snapping the
Opera House and the coat-hanger (then joining them :-). I'm a water
person, so also on the ferries again - to Balmain, Hunter's Hill,
Parramatta. It's a wonderful harbour. Saw a show at the Darlinghurst
Theatre, ate in pubs (no chips please, just salad with the fish, and how
rough is the house red ?) and Chinese and Indian (naan bread, no
rice:-).

Then back to Newcastle for the three-hour bus ride to Forster-Tuncurry
on the lakes, to do all the little jobs Mum's been saving for me to do
at her place. She wants them done before she heads off for her next
odyssey in her motor-home (RV); She's leaving today (alone) for four
months up the coast to the Daintree Rainforest in North Queensland.
Hopefully she'll be back in time for her 80th birthday celebrations that
I and my siblings are planning for November. Obviously, this travel bug
is hereditary. Sat beside a lady in the train who, when she saw me test,
chatted about her hubby who recently passed away eighteen years after
diagnosis, with 'opathys for his final ten years (retin-, neur-, neph-).
"But he ate exactly what they said he should..." Accu-chek as a
conversation piece.

And, finally, departed Taree at 12:35 Tuesday for Murwillumbah and home.
The final stages wonderfully bright in the full moon, watching roos
bound along beside us at dusk, arriving at 9 pm. Amazed to find the car
still sitting in the car-park, even more surprised when it started, then
home to Pottsville through the cane-fields.

Well, it started out to be brief.....

Cheers, Alan
--
Everything in Moderation - Except Laughter.


Cheers, Alan
--

Alan wrote in message . ..
I originally wrote the following two messages on a different, medical
newsgroup. Since then it has occurred to me that some here may find it
interesting.
[much snipped]
Nice to see a travelogue, Alan--they seem to be dying out much as rail
service is!

Accu-chek as a
conversation piece.
Welll...maybe it's the difference between American and Australian
public conduct. Or different ideas about interactions with strangers.
Or something else... At any rate, it seemed during my travels down
under that *anything* could serve as a conversation piece in your
country ;-) --make it fun for a solo traveler!

Nancy

On 11 May 2004 08:53:49 -0700, (ncurtis) wrote:

Alan wrote in message . ..
I originally wrote the following two messages on a different, medical
newsgroup. Since then it has occurred to me that some here may find it
interesting.
[much snipped]
Nice to see a travelogue, Alan--they seem to be dying out much as rail
service is!

Accu-chek as a
conversation piece.
Welll...maybe it's the difference between American and Australian
public conduct. Or different ideas about interactions with strangers.
Or something else... At any rate, it seemed during my travels down
under that *anything* could serve as a conversation piece in your
country ;-) --make it fun for a solo traveler!


Nancy

Thanks Nancy. I didn't have any problems striking up conversations in
the States last year, but I must admit, in hindsight, I was usually the
initiator. I suppose they responded because of my odd way of speaking:-)
Apart, of course, from the ones who thought they deserved my money more
than I did. I met a few of them in New Orleans.

Thanks for the reponse, I was starting to wonder if it actually appeared
out there.

Unfortunately, it looks like we'vr lost the fight, and the
Casino-Murwillumbah spur-line will carry it's last passengers on the
15th of May just three days from now.


Cheers, Alan
--