Where am I and where is my ultimate destination?

[whole diary]

[PhilWakely]

My laptop died and whilst recovering from backup, I found a few photos taken a couple of years ago. So, in the style of bignosemac (although significantly easier!), "Where am I and where is my ultimate destination?"......

[chrisr_75]

Peterborough, South Australia? Final destination Sydney or Perth?

[PhilWakely]

I thought it was easy 

[chrisr_75]

Even though I've never visited Aus, the sky is unmistakable and the eucalyptus in the background was another clue. Had to be Aus or USA with a name like that, it certainly wasn't Cambridgeshire!

Google & Wikipedia were my friends for your final destination:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterborough_railway_station,_South_Australia

And I had to be the first poster on one of these 'where am I' threads just the once...! 

Quite envious of that trip, it's surely one of the great (looooong) railway journeys of the world, along with Trans-Siberian and the like 

[Thatcham Crossing]

The bit between Adelaide and Perth must be one of the longest rail journeys with that few stops on the planet.

I've flown it and that took 3.5 hrs!

[PhilWakely]

The bit between Adelaide and Perth must be one of the longest rail journeys with that few stops on the planet.

I've flown it and that took 3.5 hrs!

Adelaide to Perth includes the longest straight bit of track in the world - 478 kilometres across the Nullabor Plain. We left Adelaide at 4pm on Thursday, stopped at Cook for 45 minutes at about 12noon on Friday, Kalgoorlie for 2 hours at 10pm on Friday and arrived at Perth at 11am on Saturday!

This trip was a 'redundancy celebration' for me. After a few days in Perth, I flew up to Darwin for a few days and then took the Ghan to Adelaide. Two 'rail wonders' in one go! If you can't do both, either of the two trips is definitely recommended.

Quite envious of that trip, it's surely one of the great (looooong) railway journeys of the world, along with Trans-Siberian and the like 

Oh, and chrisr_75, I 'did' the Trans-Mongolian (St Petersburg to Beijing via Moscow, Irkutsk and Ulan Bator) the following year 

[JayMac]

I'm madly envious.

The Ghan and The Indian Pacific are two on my railway 'bucket list'.

[chrisr_75]

Quite envious of that trip, it's surely one of the great (looooong) railway journeys of the world, along with Trans-Siberian and the like 

Oh, and chrisr_75, I 'did' the Trans-Mongolian (St Petersburg to Beijing via Moscow, Irkutsk and Ulan Bator) the following year 
[/quote]

I would have loved to have travelled the Trans-Siberian/Mongolian while the USSR was still in one piece, as it would've been something else to have experienced that, although perhaps slightly voyeuristic, being from outside it!

I can recommend Paul Theroux's various books on the area, long time since I've read them but I recall both being a good read and written when communism was still strong and Western influence slight - The Great Railway Bazaar (Trans-Sib), Riding the Red Iron Rooster (Trans-Mongolian), he re-traced these journeys in 2006, writing Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, which I've not read.

[PhilWakely]

I would have loved to have travelled the Trans-Siberian/Mongolian while the USSR was still in one piece, as it would've been something else to have experienced that, although perhaps slightly voyeuristic, being from outside it!

I can recommend Paul Theroux's various books on the area, long time since I've read them but I recall both being a good read and written when communism was still strong and Western influence slight - The Great Railway Bazaar (Trans-Sib), Riding the Red Iron Rooster (Trans-Mongolian), he re-traced these journeys in 2006, writing Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, which I've not read.

On my Trans-Mongolian trip, I met two distinct types of Russian people. Young people (under about thirty) were more than happy to make friends and converse with you in English (I did try my very sparse Russian), but the older people were a little more reticent - probably a throw back to the old USSR I guess. The leg from Irkutsk to Ulan Bator was quite surreal - with, what I can only assume to be 'smugglers with the blessing of the rail staff' openly operating 

Having done the Trans-Mongolian, I would like to go back and do the 'Trans-Manchurian' - which is Beijing to Irkutsk via Harbin ('round the back of Mongolia') and then complete the rest of the Trans-Siberian out to Vladivostock, but the current political climate in Russia (plus a slight lack of cash!) is putting me off for the moment.

[Bmblbzzz]

Another interesting and amusing book about a long rail journey in that part of the world is Silverland by Dervla Murphy. Although ostensibly a bike journey, she spends most of her time on BAM, which she very obviously prefers to the Trans-Siberian.