We left Moree station at 8.20 am on Wednesday and arrived in Cohuna at 1.30pm on Thursday. A mammoth trip.
The reason for the journey was to come back to Melbourne to let the specialist see the results of the radioactive iodine that I had 6 weeks ago.
I now have a couple of questions about trains. 1. What has been done to the tracks to take away the delightful old clickety clack of my childhood? 2. How can it be that, sitting down, the journey is smoother and standing up, it's much more rocky?
I really miss the old rhythm. As a child, I had a number of names for it, my favourite being tallarook, tallarook, tallarook, tallarook. On the first repetition of the word, I leaned slightly forwards, then backwards on the second; I bounced gently up and down with each word. Yes, there was an art to it. Now, the train glides along the track. No rhythm, no tallarook, no bouncing.
My second question illustrates a strange problem. At one moment, I'm sitting down gliding; then I stand up and I'm tossed around in every direction. How can this be? The train runs more smoothly, yet standing up is a health hazard. I checked out my balance by standing on the section where 2 carriages join together. It was as much rocking fun as it used to be but I didn't feel that I was being thrown all over the place. I walked back into the carriage and immediately felt that there were imps either side of me, pushing and pulling at random.
I had a lovely play with a little girl on the Moree train. It turned out that the family lived in the same street as my massager, Tom, and I've been invited to visit. The little girl, Myisha (sp?) sat with her Dad on one side and Mum and the baby were behind me. The gorgeous baby, with a mop of curly black hair, was a laughing, happy little girl, with a wise look on her face. I think that The Dreaming was in her big, dark eyes.
When we reached Werris Creek, we got out and wandered through the Railway Museum there. Really well done and it brought back some good memories. I loved seeing the foot heaters again.
The carriages from another train were to be hooked at the back of our train and I stood there to watch (naturally.) I have a penchant for watching people do mechanical work. The couplings just would not stay together. Our train bumped back into the other, time after time, to no avail. Then they tried using the other train to bump into ours, but that wouldn't work either. Eventually, our train went around to the back, the thumping commenced again and this time it worked. We continued on our way to Sydney. Whoever invented trains with a diesel motor at each ended, sure saved a lot of shunting time of the big steam locos! While the diesels are sleek, clean and efficient, they aren't nearly as impressive as the steam engines of my childhood.
Shortly after our late arrival in Sydney, we found some fairly rubbishy food to eat at the shops on the station. The dozens of pigeons flying around and landing on the tables were very off-putting. They look cute but the thought of what germs they carry makes me shudder. It's hard to understand why Sydney is such a a sparse and impoverished looking station while Melbourne has clean, fantastic facilities.
We noticed 5 or 6 homeless men huddled down amongst their blankets,on the cold ground. They were in their beds before 7pm; I assumed that they needed to take their position before someone else got to it.
The Sydney to Melbourne train was late getting in, so we all hurried on to it and heard the unusual announcement, "This train will leave as soon as possible."
I was quick into the shower, partly because there were 3 other people to share it; but my main reason was to shower before the train built up too much speed. Last year, I nearly knocked myself out, bouncing from wall to wall.
Steve took the top bunk and slept well. I liked the bottom bunk, enjoyed the motion and saw every station pass by!!
We had set alarms to wake up and have coffee at 3am, ready for the 4.10am arrival in Albury. The attendant didn't come when organised and the train was going too fast for us to read station names, so we had no idea where we were. When the attendant did arrive, we found out that we were over 30 minutes late. That put paid to any thought of catching the 4.30am bus to Cohuna.
Unbelievably, there was no waiting room open at the station but a kindly luggage room man let us put our cases and bags in his room. We caught a taxi to the only place open ---- a McDonalds! In fact, it wasn't open; only the drive through part was. Our nice taxi driver was upset for us but I assured him that I was willing to crawl through the drive through hatch! The lovely manager let us in but couldn't serve us for an hour. Who cared?! It was warm. He delivered us papers and magazines to read. At 6am, we were able to order breakfast and before long it was time to get another taxi back to the station, where the bus was waiting.
The 7.10am bus eventually arrived in Cohuna at 1.30pm. Those 304 kms take only 4 hours when travelling direct, by car. The good old bus made many, many stops, as well as a lunch break. We drove in and out of many towns without picking up or dropping off passengers; Steve and I took it in turns to provide each other with reasons why this happened eg. He's taking us to see his home. This is his childhood home. He admires the trees in this garden. He thinks his dog would like this town etc.
We rang Marion, who picked us up. Our car had waited patiently at her place in town, for the last month. After a cuppa and a catch-up, we travelled the last 20 minutes of a very long journey.
It has been a busy 2 days, with a massage, blood test, doctor's visit and a delightful meal out with family. On Monday we will head to Melbourne to see more family and the specialist.
We're happy to be home again but boy, IT IS COLD.
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