And so we beat on, posts against the tide, and continue our series of “photos of readers.” Today’s reader is Stephen Pilotte, who took a trip to Oz with his wife. Stephen’s notes are indented:
Not sure if you are still looking for photos of your readers, but here are a few from our one month trip to Australia in 2011. I had just met my future wife, Nathalie, two years before. She had told me that visiting Australia was one of her dreams. I love travelling even though it is more of a challenge being in a wheelchair. Our first trip together was to visit the city of Toronto and we went by train. In the train, there was a magazine and inside that was an ad for a train, the Ghan that does Adelaide, SA – Darwin, NT in 48 hours for a total distance of 2,979 km or 1,851 miles. I thought it would be an exciting thing to do, so I ripped the page out of the magazine. I still have it and actually framed it! We left Montreal, Canada, and landed in Sydney, Australia, where we stayed only five days. The reason for such a short stay was because of the scheduled of the Ghan, which was twice a week if I remember correctly. We were taking the train from Adelaide, SA, and so could not stay too long in Sydney. We stayed one week in Alice Springs so we could visit Uluru.
This photo was taken at the end of our visit to Uluru. We had a cheap meal of sausages and veggies accompanied by thousand of flies!
The photo below was taken at Adelaide train station. We were waiting to board the train. It was nice that I was able to board it almost by myself as the platform was on the same level as the train’s doors.
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Very cool, what a great trip and story! Thanks for sharing these. Love to logo on the train!
…the logo …
Isn’t logoing what happens as the train rocks back and forth on the tracks during travel?
😀
Nice pictures. I know almost nothing about Australia. Long ago in elementary school we had pen pals in Australia. The reason for this long distance communication – Apparently there is a town down under by the name, Clarinda, same name as where I am from in Iowa. I was lucky enough to get a girl for pen pal as they were pretty sure Randy was a girls name.
As an aside, over in the UK prince Andrew was known as “randy andy” 🙂
Ugh I know and it Grosses me out now.
Yes, I lived in England for over 3 years so I kind of know about it. I’m guessing Prince Andrews problems were a bit worse than just being horny, eh? The company we keep.
Lovely photos, and a great story – “more of a challenge”, but you definitely smashed it.
That’s a great story. I’m glad you saw the ad in a magazine for the Ghan and followed through. Lucky you saw it!
Nice story.
The BBC showed a 3 hour documentary of the Ghan’s journey a while back. I think this is it on Youtube: https://tinyurl.com/y8kpuj5l
Strangely compelling.
I was thinking just the other day, when I watched the sun rise over Botany Pond, that the DuckCam had the oddly compelling quality of slow television: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_television#International_adaptations
Yeah, well, don’t go closin’ up shop, boss. For many of us who visit, WEIT is the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock.
We believe in the green light, and the orgastic future that may yet lie before us when this pandemic passes.
Sometimes being impulsive has its rewards. Looks like a fantastic trip…except for lunch with flies. 😬 I much prefer fries.
Sure hope the dingoes didn’t eat any babies while you visiting Uluru, Stephen.
Thanks for sharing the story about the Ghan, I had never heard of it! Something to do once lockdown is over here in Australia 🙂
Thanks for sharing your charming story and photos with us, Stephen! That would be a dream of mine to visit Australia, along with New Zealand and Fiji.
That sounds like a a great adventure, Stephen. I’m glad you enjoyed it.
As they probably explained on the train, the Ghan is named after the Afghan cameleers who were brought to Australia in the 19th century, to help with exploring the vast Australian interior deserts. Of course, once the railways came, the Afghans and their camels were no longer needed.
After the Afghans were ‘down-sized’ they liberated their camels which are now feral in the outback. It is alleged that if these camels can be caught and tamed, they are in great demand in the middle-East since they do not have foot and mouth disease (the zoonotic disease, not that suffered by dRumpf!).
What a nice trip! At least the Toronto to Montreal trip is a nice one. I want to one day do the trip that takes you up to James Bay. People often go in the Fall to see the larvae’s change colour.
Haha autocorrect! larvae’s = leaves. A couple days ago it autocorrected “Strategies” to “pretty dicks” and my friends and I have been laughing ever since.
An excellent adventure! Australia is a bucket list item for me. But the place is so big I imagine I’ll need at least a year to really see it.
I was on the Adelaide to Sydney leg of that trip for my 80th birthday. It was a great experience! Sydney is a fine city to visit. The end of the holiday was not quite so good: my flight back to Cardiff was cancelled and there was a period of panic until we found a flight to Heathrow instead. Arrived home and went straight into lockdown.