We said farewell to the beautiful city of Melbourne with its population of approximately 5.3 million, lots of green spaces, gardens, art, a great public transport system with free trams and trains within inner city boundaries – and heavy fines for speeding and being on your phone while driving (and cameras to catch you).  Although there is a great transport system there is still crawling traffic all day to get around the city and outer suburbs. Sadly, the daily news bulletins are full of the bad news – crime seems to have ramped up here, graffiti is prevalent even on lovely buildings and walls and, as in every city in the world, the homeless are evident.

We had an early departure at 8 am on the Overland train to travel the 820 km to Adelaide.  After settling into very comfortable seats we were served a lovely breakfast to start the day.  The train rolled on past flat, dry pastures towards Wirrebee and Geelong.  Green paddocks are a rare sight and the gum trees dominate the land which is sparsely populated with farm animals – a few sheep and beef to be seen but on this hot 34 degree day maybe some are resting in the shade – of which there seems to be very little!

There are tiny settlements, immense fields of recently harvested grain – barley, wheat, alfalfa, apples, pears, stone fruit, citrus and almonds with wheat and barley being the mainstay crops.  As we roll on we see working  farm tractors throwing up clouds of dust and the sheep are an earthy colour and blend into this parched land.  We see dust whirlwinds dancing across the fields, (smaller than the ones we saw in Arizona), and the odd kangaroo.  Some large shallow lakes have completely dried up and for some reason, the train is sometimes on a lean as we travel on past Ararat, Stawell, Horsham, Dimboola, Nhill and Bordertown where the time goes back by 30 minutes as we make our way further west and through into South Australia.  

This land is vast – we have travelled approximately 600 km of utterly flat plains as far as the eye can see.  It makes our NZ seem so small but gives us an appreciation of our beautiful landscape at home.  Suddenly, out of nowhere, we pass a group of camels – can you belieeeeve it?  Then some dry salt flats, wind and solar farms and, from about Murray Bridge onwards, the landscape gets greener with some vineyards and green trees.  We roll into Adelaide after 11 hours of comfortable, enjoyable and interesting travel being fed along the way on this Overland train and step off the train into 34 degree heat to begin to explore Adelaide.

The one in charge of the B’s is doing a stellar job trundling along in this extreme heat.  The one in charge of the P’s has lost her Tour Leader and it is highly likely she will lose her mind in the predicted almost 40 degree heat! I now have to get my act together if it is at all possible and sort out the paperwork to become the tour leader before the tour companion lays a complaint!  I have planned the days in Adelaide but already some of the plan has gone out the window because we are doing some edits to take into account these hot days.  I am at risk of getting a bad review but I know that if I can find an ice cream shop to get him a treat all will be well!