Sentimental Journey - a Lost Railway

Two years ago, they closed my local rail line. I wrote this before and after taking that train for the last time to Sydney.

Before.

I grew up in the '50s and '60s when air travel in Australia was expensive and rare for our family. I think my only flight was on a DC-something in 1955, before I joined the RAAF in '64 and discovered slightly faster aeroplanes.

We were a far-flung family so I spent many nights on the trains in New South Wales, on nearly all of the north and north-western lines. I loved those nights, watching the little stations flash past, or stopping at the "RRR" (Rail RefreshmentRooms) while the engine wheezed and the water and coal were replenished. I spent many christmasses at my Grandparents' house beside the shunting yards at Narrabri, watching fascinated as they re-arranged the wheat, coal and goods carriages.

Now the short-sighted state government has decided to close our local line. Local politics would mean little here, but I'm about as angry about that as I can be. But that's a battle I can't win.
So tonight I'm off to the Big Smoke for a week or so, for a nostalgic 14-hour ride ride on the Murwillumbah to Sydney line before they let the trestles decay and the sleepers rot.
See you all in a week or two.

After

Thanks to all those on the alt.support.diabetes group who asked about the little journey to nostalgia. Therefore, a brief trip report on a relaxed week away. Well, it started off brief, and then got Topsy-like.

Departed, an hour late, about 11 pm, so missed most of the scenery through the hills. I like watching the little stations flash past: Stoker's Siding, Burringbar, Bilinudgel, Byron Bay, Mullumbimby, Bangalow (where the palms come from, not BUngalow), Lismore and we've only gone two hours with eleven more to go. It's this section, Murwillumbah to Casino, that's closing.
Shared my twinette sleeper with an old Digger returning to Sydney who had gone to Brisbane to march with his mates on Anzac Day (25th April). 90 years old, spry and alert, and diagnosed Type 2 two years ago. Fascinated by my Accu-chek; he'd never seen a meter.

Broken sleep punctuated by lights flashing past and the doppler effects of passing sounds. Woke at 2:30 am while we slowly shunted back and forth on the bridge over the Clarence at Grafton as they changed engines and crews. Nothing more silent and still than a river in the half-moonlight.

I grew up swimming in that big river, rowing fours and butcher-boats, building rafts, catching bream and throwing back catfish, square-dancing at the Jacaranda Festival.

More broken sleep through Glenreagh, Nana Glen (Russell Crowe's farmlet), Coramba, Coffs Harbour, Urunga, Nambucca Heads, Macksville, Kempsey. Woke up properly at dawn as we passed through the misty lush green valley of the Manning River at Taree. Then the quiet farms and hamlets through Gloucester and Dungog, the wine and coal country of the Hunter Valley, Maitland, Newcastle. Spectacular scenery as we passed through the central coast districts and Wyong, Gosford, Broken Bay on the Hawkesbury.

Finally, into the urban sprawl of Sydney. Spent the next three days using my ex-soldiers pass to travel on buses, trains and ferries around the town like any tourist. Chinatown, Paddy's Market, Australia Square, off to Manly on the ferry watching all the tourists happily snapping the Opera House and the coat-hanger (then joining them :-). I'm a water person, so also on the ferries again - to Balmain, Hunter's Hill, Parramatta. It's a wonderful harbour. Saw a show at the Darlinghurst Theatre, ate in pubs (no chips please, just salad with the fish, and how rough is the house red ?) and Chinese and Indian (naan bread, no rice:-).

Then back by commuter train for two hours to Newcastle for the three-hour bus ride to Forster-Tuncurry on the lakes, to do all the little jobs Mum's been saving for me to do at her place. She wants them done before she heads off for her next odyssey in her motor-home (RV); She's leaving today (alone) for four months up the coast to the Daintree Rainforest in North Queensland. Hopefully she'll be back in time for her 80th birthday celebrations that I and my siblings are planning for November. Obviously, this travel bug is hereditary. Sat beside a lady in the train who, when she saw me test, chatted about her hubby who recently passed away eighteen years after diagnosis, with 'opathys for his final ten years (retin-, neur-, neph-). "But he ate exactly what they said he should..." Accu-chek as a conversation piece.

And, finally, departed Taree at 12:35 Tuesday for Murwillumbah and home. The final stages wonderfully bright in the full moon, watching roos bound along beside us at dusk, arriving at 9 pm. Amazed to find the car still sitting in the car-park, even more surprised when it started, then home to Pottsville through the cane-fields.

Well, it started out to be brief.....

Cheers, Alan