The Indian Pacific Railway

(Saturday 6th - Sunday 7th)

At last, I was leaving Sydney.

Now I loved Sydney, there's always plenty to do and see, the restaurants are generally good, but I felt I was slowly drowning in Sydney, just as I eventually drowned in London.

But now, the tourism switch was truly off, and I was about to wend my way westwards towards Adelaide.

Via the Indian Pacific railway, a line that stretches from coast to coast from the well, the Indian to the Pacific.

I had a few hours to wait before boarding the train and so I killed them in the station bar.

There's little that's edifying around Sydney Central Station and besides I was exhausted chasing the visa merry-go-round for the next few legs of my journey.

I cast my eyes around the unispiring station.

There was the usual assortment of eccentrics, God botherers, mumbling Henrys and the down right mad. I often wonder what it is about railway stations that attracts such a bohemian cross section. Most of them weren't actually travelling at all.

Food seems to be universally dreadful in and around most train stations and Sydney Central is certainly no exception to the rule.

I forced part of a wilting kebab down my throat before the grease finally melted the bread between my fingers and washed it down with some sickly sweet coke. I began to wonder where the next decent meal was going to come from. Food doesn't need to be complicated or expensive to be good. Just fresh and simple. Give me some good bread, butter, cheese and some fruit and I could eat all day. Nobody seems to have twigged this, and had I the time and foresight aforethought I would have bought my own vittles with me and feasted like a king.

Foresight and I don't really get on however.

Two hours to kill.

I slapped myself down in the bar and ordered a beer.

By the time I sank a stubby, a rather portly man had ordered and swallowed at least five schooners. He was an obviously odd fellow with an even more obvious beer gut.

He stands alone at one end of the horseshoe bar and buries his face without saying a word into his brew. When he finishes, he dashes almost full shoe and urgently demands a refill by pointing a stubby finger alternately at the VB tap and his sucked empty schooner as though each second of its empty life is a crime against his humanity. He doesn't speak, just points, hands over the money and retreats back to his place in the corner, glaring at anyone that might notice him.

I assumed at first that he might be deaf, or a mute or both, but when a brief second of confusion reigned (he'd taken his eye off the bartender for a split second) and demanded

'Is that my beer?'

I realised that he was simply odd.

There's this most odd looking orthodox Jew with white blond locks, hat and the darkest sun-glasses I've ever seen drowning his face. I often wonder why people wear their sunglasses in doors in the gloom they just look so silly. I thought about that for a while and then promptly removed mine.

In the corner a small man is devouring a Hungry Jims burger with such evident relish and pleasure I pause to watch him. He's rocking back and forth a smile spreading across his face with such rapture I wonder if he's found God through eating processed bollock burgers. His whole body is shaking and his eyes are darting, hunted as though someone will take away his disgusting feast

A woman dressed from head to toe in a sort of pink Great Gatsby 1920s Charlston (look, I don't do fashion as anyone that has met me knows all too well) affair is mumbling her way across the concourse and two patrolling policemen promptly walk in the opposite direction in order to avoid her.

A blind man with a guide dog is frantically checking his Lotto tickets against the numbers flashing on the screens hung high aboce the horseshoe bar. Odd.

I turned back and ordered a glass of wine from the world weary waitress, a Philipino I think.

Half an hour until the grand sounding Indian-Pacific train leaves this doldrum when suddenly I'm in conversation with an aboriginal fellow, apparently called Sitoli, that had arrived as if by magic completely out of the thin air and is sitting there grinning maniacally at me.