Daylight breaks in The Alice, the 'locals' go about their daily business and I get ready to take Marvin back to Thrifty and get my bits together for the train ride home.
After putting another 1500k under my belt, I dropped Marvin off (can't say I grew as attached to him as Colin. I wish I had taken Colin to Uluru.....). had a last minute bimble and then off to the train station.
The crew was going to be the same one that I came up with so I was looking forward to seeing them again as they really were great fun.
Caught up with Bruce, the Train Manager in the waiting room and then it was time to board. Took my seat (temporarilly until I could take up my place in the lounge!) and it was off back to Adelaide. It had been a great trip down memory lane, and making some new ones too, just like a lot of this trip. Just as I was leaving I heard my name being called and it was Rebecca and Rob from the bar the night before! They had been in to sort out their trip to Darwin, saw me and came to say bye. They are alos following the Blog, thanks guys!
There was also another great group of passengers on the return journey, and some familiar faces that I had seen on the trip up and at Uluru, so there was plenty of swapping stories. Got chatting to another mice couple from Northants called Jackie and Mike, and there ended up being a real mix of us chatting in the lounge - Paul, and older guy from Jo'Burg in S.Africa who was travelling alone, and young guy from York studying Geology, a guy from Finland studying Japanese Culture, good old me and a few others thrown into the mix . The wine was flowing, the company was good and the staff on the train were hilarious again so all in all it was a great 24 hours!
About 5.30pm I was chatting to Bruce the Manager and I was asking him what it was like down the posh end of the train (they have sleeper carriages and dinner service etc, just like the Orient Express) so he took me down for a sneek peek. It was lovely! Very swish as they were setting up for dinner at 6pm and they were having a pre-dinner opera performance! He gave me a glass of wine and said to make sure I cleared out before the dinner started!! So I sat and listened to them amongst all the olds that had paid an arm and a leg for the privilege! It was great. I stole a couple of beermats on the way out as mementos and it was back to the cheap seats!!
Stayed up till 1am talking about everything from homelessness in Japan, rock, morris dancing (the young lad from York does it in Adelaide!) and then on to football before returning to my recliner for a coupla hours sleep. I then chatted to a guy who had basically followed me through the storm on the way up to Alice. He had just got to Thrifty as I left and he saw the lightening fires too. And he took pics that were about 30mins behind me and they are amazing, showing how quick it had spread! I can't believe how many people I keep meeting up with and finding out we have seen each other before!
Off to the land of recline............
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