We are spending the day traveling from Sydney to Byron Bay, 10 hours by train. Early in the morning, we get on the train and unload our packs, sleeping bags, and 4 bags of groceries. Naomi and I had a giggling fit about the amount of food we brought for our 12 hour trip. Enough to feed us for 3 days. In case you are wondering:
- salad
- pasta and sauce
- oranges
- yogurt
- tuna
- crackers
- cookies
- peanuts and walnuts
- trailmix
- tea and sugar
- chocolate bars
- V8
- lettuce and spinach (that's in addition to the salad)
- peanut butter
- nutella
- peanut butter sandwiches, already prepared
- coconut bread from the Korean bread store
- cheese
- water bottles
- MMs
We unpacked it all and it barely stayed up on our TWO meal trays long enough to take a picture. Then we put it away and picked at it throughout the day, barely making a dent.
The beginning of the route is seriously the windiest, slowest train I have ever been on. Part of the route goes through the Great Dividing Range Mountains, and that windy slowness is understandable. But miles and miles of the trip takes place over flattened fields and through relatively flat forests. The train S-curves through these parts as well, never going above 40 mph. It is as though the railroad engineers decided to follow the contours of an imaginary river EXACTLY. This commute it going to take us 12 hours but it could probably be shortened in half if they relaid the tracks in a a straight line and then the train could quit meandering and speed up. Also, then I could on the train without getting dizzy.
Twenty minutes outside of Sydney, we are in wilderness. Lush hills of eucalyptus and bush. Green, green, green. Hills for miles. Fog filling the valleys and lazily smoking upwards. Feels like rainforest.
Lush, green forests make way for pasture land and rolling hills, scattered trees. Sheep and cows grazing.
Lots of eucalyptus forests.
Pastures and farmland turn into small towns with grassy fields and rivers.
What do we do on the bus? We read and eat. We see one black guy on the train. This is the most exciting thing to happen all day. We vow to never take an all-day train again.
Australian thing of the day: Coconut bread, which is probably Taiwanese, but it counts since I ate the whole bag along the Australian countryside. Coconut bread feels like a cloud on your tongue, warm, light, and sweet. I would eat this for breakfast every day if I had a Taiwanese bread machine.
Australian thing of the day 2: Orange flavored MMs. Just like the regular ones, with a shot of orange flavor. Worth the inflated overseas price.
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