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Dawn’s elder sister has been staying with us this weekend, visiting from Sydney. During this time we drove up Mount Dandenong - here are some photos:

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Our first day on the Indian Pacific dawned rainy and windy - not a good start to a scenic train ride! So we got on the train and found our 1st class sleeper cabin. The first thing that struck me was how old fashioned everything was - and I say that in the nicest possible way. They have totally preserved the 50’s style of the train so that your experience is exactly how it would have been back then, but with a few modern conveniences thrown in to make it more comfortable. Honestly, when I first entered the dining carriage I expected Hercule Poirot to wander in!

Anyway, after we acquainted ourselves with our cabin and the little gifts left for us by Indian Pacific staff, we explored the rest of the public areas. The lounge carriage was quite comfortable, with a bar and huge windows to watch the view from. By the way, we weren’t the youngest people there either, as there was a family with 2 teenagers, and a really obnoxious guy travelling with what looked like some elderly relatives - if you want to meet lots of young people, go in 2nd class is all I’m saying!!!

Fortunately the rain subsided as we moved away from Perth, and it opened up into some gorgeous mountain scenery. We arrived late in the evening at Kalgoorlie, where some people took a night tour of the town - we declined as we didn’t think there would be much to see at night, later confirmed by others who took the tour. The scenery soon changed to farmland, which soon changed to desert, and the familiar “red dust and saltbush” of the Nullarbor took over the view from our window. Animal sightings were of the wedge-tail eagle swooping gloriously in the distance, as well as kangaroos and some random stands of camels.

We had a couple of other stops, one being at a veritible ghost town called Cook which had about 4 permanent residents. Quite eerie

I have to say we ate well. Three course meals every time, and the food was delish. It got to the stage where I longed to have the feeling of being hungry. The worst part of the journey was the jolting - for something that boasts having the longest straight stretch of railway in the world, it certainly didn’t feel so straight or smooth!

As we neared Adelaide I had this strange sad sensation that our little “bubble-world” would soon end. Sometimes I feel like “this is what my whole life is” when going on particularly epic journeys and it feels like you are emerging from a cocoon when it ends. That’s what it was like.

ADELAIDE
I have never been to Adelaide before and we spent the time wandering around the city centre and just generally checking the place out. We also took a tram down to Glenelg which was quite fun, it’s a bustling little seaside town with lots of shops and cafes etc. and a pretty good waterfront that’s obviously had a recent and rather expensive facelift!

Well, that’s it for now - we will take the Overlander to Melbourne tomorrow, and begin the adventure of life in a new city for us both. So the holiday must end, and we must be all grown up and find jobs and a place to live

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On Monday we travelled from Hong Kong to Macau, getting some more stamps in our passports (Hong Kong exit stamp, and Macau entry stamp!) and got the hotel shuttle bus to where we were staying. The hotel didn’t look like much from outside, but inside it was very plush! We even had a room upgrade for free, and ended up in a really big room with a large flatscreen widescreen tv on the wall - quite a difference from the hotel room in Hong Kong which was very small!

The main money-maker in Macau are the casinos - Stanley Ho is the big name round here, having made his fortune through owning casinos. We actually saw him doing a press conference at the Grand Lisboa, which is a big casino he owns. Even our hotel had a mini-casino in it. Of course, most of the locals don’t have much to do with the casinos unless they work there - the main visitors are from mainland China, followed by Hong Kong. Because Macau was previously administered by Portugal, it can feel like you’re in southern Europe at times when walking around - but then you hear Cantonese being spoken, and see the peoples faces and realise you’re in China!

We returned to Hong Kong today, and would both like to visit Hong Kong & Macau again, but not in the summer! A different time of year so it would be easier to do things. Tomorrow we are off to Singapore for a couple of nights before heading to Perth in Australia.

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We arrived into Hong Kong on Thursday, and it’s very hot & humid here! We’ve been having an air-conditioning break for a few hours around lunch time every day..

Both of us are enjoying our time here - we’ve been taking things easy because of the weather, so haven’t been round to everything we could go to. Today we went to Stanley Market, and up the peak on Hong Kong island as well. It was a bit cloudy this morning, but thankfully cleared up by the time we got to the peak so we could easily see across Hong Kong and the harbour.

We’ve noticed that here in Hong Kong they like their shopping malls, which are built pretty much anywhere - for example on the mountain peak, and at the ferry terminal. We will be heading to that ferry terminal tomorrow as we are going to spend a few days in Macau, which is a smaller SAR of China previously administered by Portugal.

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