On the rails

This is our second day of train travel and today we have traversed some amazing country. We did enjoy our stay at Chillagoe, country people are so welcoming – maybe because we were originally country people ourselves, I don’t know, but we have found people we would chose as friends in every stop we have made on this trip!

The train trip is in quite long stretches and the Savannah country is very similar for much of the distance except for the occasional creek crossing or river bed. I have my camera set on a high shutter speed to enable me to capture the beauty within the river beds with little or (hopefully!) no blur to indicate that the picture was taken while on the move! Each of the creeks is different – some are dry and either rocky or else quite sandy or a few have remnants of water still in narrow bands within the wide river bed. The trees that grow in these river beds or along the sides are much healthier than their cousins on the open plains and there are a few different varieties that stand out.

For many miles we see no animals and we forget that we are traveling through huge cattle stations, then we find patches where the cattle are close to the train tracks. The cattle up here are all Brahman, floppy eared creatures with a pendulous dewlap.

They are a tough breed of cattle that are tick resistant, the traditional European breeds of cattle are completely unsuitable for either the ticks that suck the creatures blood and inject a poison or the extremes of temperature in this part of Australia. At one place where the track traveled between a high cutting and a steep drop-away, the cattle were all over the tracks and our train had to creep quite slowly to avoid hitting any - the noise and movement of the train did encourage them to get out of our way. The front seats of the first carriage were jammed with people with cameras set on “video” mode. The people in the second carriage could see nothing of the entertainment going on at the front of the train!

Another fun thing that happened today was the promise of a stop at a siding where the locals would be waiting at Bullock Creek Café with tea coffee and cakes and a souvenir mug that we could purchase. When we arrived at the Bullock Creek siding there was nothing to be seen except for old timber cattle yards and a tiny tin shed with the name “Bullock Creek” written on the top. “We shall have to make a phone call and hurry them up” said our driver over the PA and marched down to the back of the train. Within minutes the two drivers had put up a beach umbrella and set up tables on which were cakes and cups of tea and coffee. Sure enough the mugs were for sale! We shall make good use of ours!

If it were not for this tourist train chugging through this hungry country and stopping at the places it does the life would be drained from these tiny communities. Once a week the train and its load of tourist passengers pass through and then back again. Places like Einasleigh with its handful of houses and one large hotel would fade away if it were not for the Savannahlander.

I love the sign work on the front of the pub – a play on words!

This evening as we made our way to where we were to have our meal in Forsayth I realized that the sun was setting and so far I had not taken any pictures of an outback sunset. Leaving my exhausted husband to wait I trotted off to take my picture without road signs or power poles! It was a beautiful evening sky, not the most dramatic I have ever seen but beautiful all the same and the temperature was perfect. The heat of the day had dissipated and the flies had stopped being overly friendly. (where there are cattle there are flies) It was quiet and there was no wind at all.

I should have taken a photo of our meal – try as I could I could not eat more than half of it! I had forgotten that country people serve country sized meals! Colin even managed to have a dessert afterwards! I think I am letting the side down! And that was after I had piled my unwanted potatoes onto his plate too!

It’s another early start tomorrow. so I should end here. No internet or phone connections available in this part of the world so I will have to try to post this tomorrow night.

AJ

A train to the outback

After and early start - up at five and out dragging our suitcase down the empty streets  of Cairns by five thirty, we met up with our fellow travellers at the Cairns rail station and waited for the arrival of our home for the next four days. Actually we shall not be sleeping on the train, lodgings have been arranged in three different outback towns - the last day of travel will end in Cairns
The train is called the Savannahlander since it is used solely for the run from Cairns into the Savannahlands of Queensland. it comprises of only two carriages and had two engineers who take it i turns to drive and give commentary.

The first leg of our trip was up the mountains to the pretty little station at Kuranda the views on this run are quite spectacular and almost everyone had their cameras clicking madly at eery vantage point. Most of the time photos had to be taken from the moving train but at Baron Falls the train did stop and allow us all out for ten minutes.

I have been on the usual tourist train that does this run - it is a very long train with lots of carriages and hundreds of passengers, in this photo you can see the sum total of the travellers on our train - and the majority of them are on a day trip to - they left us at Mareeba to board a coach for the rest of their tour.

And these are the not really so spectacular falls that the train stops to let us see! No one really minds though, it is such a thrill to get out and look across such a tree clad gorge and see the landscape. The water  is held back for a hydro electric plant but we can see that at one time those falls would have been quite huge.
Our next stop was the prize winning garden station Kuranda.

By this time it was about eight thirty and although the sun is up and the sky blue, the trees and vegetation make this picture look rather dark! Or maybe it is the light on the front of the Savannahlander that does that!
Once we had dropped the day trippers off at Mareeba the train clattered on through the rainforest for a while and then quite suddenly it was out of it and into the savannah country - short scrubby trees thinly scattered over rough grassland. For most of our trip the countryside will look like this - and among the trees termite castles! I loved the amazing shapes of some of them.

I do apologise for the dreadful quality of the photograph but although I wasn't moving in the train those termite mounds were racing past! But you can see that anyone with an imagination could see strange creatures! (Yep! I have imagination!)
Our day was so busy, I could go one and give you lots of stories but I will miss most of the trip out and show you the inside of one of the caves at Chillagoe. This cave may not be as dramatic or as ornamental as some of the limestone caves I have visited but it was still fascinating - and I enjoyed the challenge of taking photos in a place where the only light was the torch each of us carried. This photo was a slow shutter speed photo with no flash. The guide was pointing out creatures created by the stalactites and stalagmites.

Everyone was so tired by this time they were quite happy to sit still!
The people of the outback need a story about them - they are so different from city folk! But maybe not! More of our travels tomeorrow!
AJ

Last Day with Graham and Nola

Today was another indoors day for Graham and me; we were busy making a “This is my life” video, consisting of voice to camera. There is a limit to how much can be covered in one session, no only because of time restraints but also because of concentration. A tired subject means many mistakes and rather more confusion than when fresh.

Graham had put the video we made yesterday onto his computer the evening before and when we played it back we could see that it was not too bad at all – only a little editing needed to be done. Noticing that Graham was wearing a different shirt this morning I sent him to dig out the one he wore yesterday from the laundry basket! We needed to have continuity so that the video gave the impression of being made all at the same time.

Thinking it might make things easier I told Graham what I was going to ask him about so that he could think about what he wanted to say. Mistake! Yesterday when the questions were asked while the camera was running the answers flowed naturally and interestingly, this time Graham was looking into space obviously trying to see the notes he had made and the story was a tad wooden.

Unable to help myself I edited the video for Graham. Some of the stories had been told out of sequence and needed to be slotted together. It was easier for me to move the clips than for me to try and tell Graham how to do it over the phone from home – I am unfamiliar with his editing program. I could do it with the program in front of me but I would have been stuck advising on how to use it, without it! (Premiere Pro 1.5) I made a simple title and when Colin and I were saying our goodbyes the program was rendering the video so that it was ready to be put onto a DVD.

It was with heavy hearts that we waved our goodbyes. We have no idea when we shall have the opportunity to be together again.

Driving back to the motel we were stopped at a rail crossing. First came the flashing lights to stop the traffic and then the boom gate descends. The car in front of me dashed through even though the lights were flashing and was on the other side of the tracks when the gates came down. Once the train was through the boom gate rose but the lights were still flashing.

The SUV in the lane beside me was gunning his motor and would have driven through. He moved but must have noticed that I was still stationary because he looked over and stopped – and waited until the lights stopped! I guess when you do this run every day and have to stop for trains you get a bit blasé about the road rules.

When Colin and I were exploring yesterday afternoon I just had to take a photo of the trams. I have seen trams before but these ones were nothing like the Melbourne trams I remembered from years ago. The Adelaide trams look more like trains.

This particular tram was running down to Glenelg through crowds of pedestrians that kept streaming across the road and traffic that was inching forward a couple of metres at a time. I am not sure who would have been more frustrated!

We pick up my sister and her husband from the airport this evening and if the weather holds we shall have a weekend of exploring and photographing.

AJ

Art in the country

Small towns are often full of surprises and one little place not far from where I live - but over the state border in New South Wales - is a little beauty. It is as small as a postage stamp and yet it attracts bus-loads of visitors every day and bigger crowds at the weekends. The town's name is Stoker's Siding. The little town started life as a dairy farm but a railway siding gave the necessary impetus for the town to grow. The reason the visitors love this place is due solely to the marketing skills of a very talented potter, everyone who comes here goes in to see the pottery and crafts that are for sale in a building that is close to 100 years old.

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The old building was once a general store and it has been lovingly maintained in its original form and is a photographer's delight! The panes of glass decorating the space above the main windows are not seen like this any more.

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I was rather taken by the unusual glass creations that were hanging inside the main display window. It was a bit difficult to take a photo of them with all the reflections on the glass - and even the circular polariser did not help very much.

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Inside the place is filled with the most exquisite pottery, paintings and works of art. If you want to see unusual glazes and huge platters and special pieces of pottery - this is the place to come!

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The train that converted Stokers Siding to a town has ceased to run and the grass grows tall between the rail lines, there are no noisy trains to disturb the peace any more neither to stop here nor to travel further north to Murwillumbah. The cows can graze in peace and quiet once again.

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The children must travel by school bus to Murwillumbah every morning and some creative parent has decorated the bus shelter. This must be one of very few bus shelters that does not have graffiti all over it.

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Even if you have visited Stokers Siding before, it is always worth another visit. The artwork in Stokers Siding Pottery is always changing and always interesting - and a new business that will attract visitors has opened next door.
AJ

Peterborough

This is a little friendly town that grew because of the railways. Here the gauges of rails changed and goods had to be manhandled from one steam train and loaded into carriages on another on different width rails. I am afraid I am not as interested in the technicalities of the rail tracks as some people are so I will skip over the details and you can look them up yourself! There is plenty to find, using Google.

A “Y” class loco has been tidied up and put into a display for a feature in the main street. We actually missed seeing it the first time we drove through because it is set back a little from the pavement.

Another notable feature of the town is the number of pubs! There must be a lot of thirsty people living here! The town used to be very much larger because of the number of people employed on the railways – imagine the number of people required to shovel coal from the coal trains on one width of track to another set of wagons on a train on wider tracks. We watched one of the trains heading up to the coal mines and it must have been three kilometers long. In days of steam the length would not have been as great but they would still have been pretty long.

After reading about it from research on the 'net I just had to go and see a little place called “Meldonfield”. This is a private home with a retired couple that has developed a hobby into a paying tourist attraction. Eldon is the coach builder – he hand craft's 12th scale models of wagons and carriages and his wife, Mary, creates the little people that ride on the carriages or tell the story about the carriage.

This picture is of one of the Indian hawkers that travelled the country selling goods. The farms and stations and small country towns depended on these people to bring them such things as material for clothing, cottons and farm hand tools.

A big (very big) project that Eldon has now completed, is the construction of a scale model of the original Peterborough railway station that had been demolished thirty years earlier and the bricks dumped in a dry creek bed. What is incredible is that this couple gathered up some of the bricks and with a brick saw cut them into 12th scale bricks and from these bricks constructed this amazing replica using the original architects plans to do so.

Foolishly the Council of Peterborough will not create a place to house this in the main street where it would be of interest to tourists, so it will remain at the home of the Zimmermans. For a reason that I cannot understand, there is unwillingness to let it go to the big steam museum “Steamtown”.

Being interested in gardens I dragged Colin along to the Dragon Gardens. This area has very little rainfall and I was totally blown away with the variety of plants the owners have been able to grow. The colour and layout was stunning. Unfortunately the man of the house fell through a roof only yesterday and has a couple of broken ribs and is very unwell at the moment so our hostess had to keep disappearing to check up on him. We quietly enjoyed her efforts and took quite a lot of photos. I even found a few dragons!

I thought you might be more interested in seeing them than seeing the flowers!

AJ

No trains today

My explorations today took me, among other places, to Glenreagh. Two days ago Colin and I were dumbfounded to see dozens of giant old steam trains and what must have been hundreds of historic train carriages in a paddock north of Dorrigo. Dorrigo is high in the mountains, so getting the trains there must have been nothing short of incredible – especially since I learned that the old timber rail bridges were not strong enough to carry the weight of some of the rolling stock. Rather than be taken to their resting place by railroad they were dismantled and transported on the backs of trucks.
The man who arranged to have all the steam trains taken to Dorrigo – with financial backing from various councils and the government – wanted to have a running rail for the public but his committee were incensed when he refused to consider using steam engines to haul the carriages because of the high cost of maintenance. I really do not know the whole story so rather than get it completely wrong I will jump to the committee leaving Dorrigo with an engine and some carriages and setting up a steam rail museum at Glenreagh – where Colin and I found the silent demise of that venture. In recent years the Department of Safety has put so many demands on the Glenreagh group that would cost thousands and thousands of dollars and yet the group were not permitted to run the rail as a business to enable them to earn the money that was needed to construct bridges and comply with all the many rather pedantic demands made by the Dept of Safety.
So the Glenreagh Mountain Railway committee has disbanded and the rolling stock now lies idle and is rusting away - as are the carriages and engines at Dorrigo. However, unlike the engines and carriages lying silently at Dorrigo, the Glenreagh track is easily accessible by people intent on destruction, and vandalism has escalated the demise of the carriages. It is hard to imagine that in a tiny country town this sort of activity goes on – but boredom and lack of respect for the property belonging to others is universal.
AJ