Train trip from Sydney to Brisbane/Bundaberg

 This was a night trip of over twelve hours and was probably the most difficult one we'd made. For some reason our seats were double booked, although we booked them first, but we offered to change seats to make it easier. The woman who sat behind us had a baby who screamed until about midnight and the train car creaked and groaned like a ship’s mast in a tempest. We though certain as we pulled out of the station that they would stop the train and change cars, but they kept going. It made it all the way to Brisbane (most people here pronounce it: briz' - bun) where we changed trains after a four hour stopover. Not much else to tell about this part of the trip since it was dark outside.

(Beerwah is the stop to take to see Steve Irwin’s, Australian Zoo.)

Between Brisbane and Bundaberg rise the Glass House Mountains. Some are short peaks while others are upthrusts of rock that stand a few hundred feet above the land around them. They start near the coast around Landsborough (some miles north of Brisbane) and march inland for a number of miles. They were named by Captain Cook on his voyage to Australia.

There are a lot of man-made watering holes for cattle and sheep. Just about anywhere there is a hill, ravine, or gully they can dam up one end or dig out a hole and bank the downward side, a pond is created. Not only does it serve for watering stock, but the native animals can make use of the water supply, as well.

Gimpie, a city south of Bundaberg, used to be a fairly large gold mining area but now boasts of only one working mine. Most gold production now is near Ballarat or near the northwestern area of Australia.

Rain followed us up the coast. As we approached Gimpie North, the rain is falling steadily, which makes the locals on the train happy since they've had ten years of drought the last twelve years.

This same area also has fertile land that supports a number of cash crops: pineapples, macadamia nuts, apricots, sugar cane, and grapes. There are also plenty of beef cattle raised in this area, while rum is the major product of Bundaberg. A man in the seat next to us said we had to visit the distillery to get some free samples, but we never made it there. (Maybe next time.)

The land also has many forests of the normal variety of trees native to Australia that grow on the hills and valleys that predominate the land just inland from the coast. There is an invasive species called Bracken Fern that covers a good portion of the ground beneath the forests along the coast. We saw a few kookaburras and were told that kangaroos also were sometimes seen in this area.

Travel by train is second nature in Australia. All the major cities have underground trains and there are five or six lines that run across the country from city to city. In the east and southeast, the trains run daily, or up to several times daily, but in the west and central portions of the nation, they may run only once a week.

We saw two kangaroos hopping across a field after being scared up by the train about an hour and a half south of Bundy. (What a lot of the locals call Bundaberg.) There is a range of mountains or hills that stand between the train route north and the coast that is part of the Great Dividing Range.

South of Maryville (75 miles or so south of Bundaberg.) the soil is poor and there are huge, hard ant mounds. They occur around the country where similar conditions prevail. On some trees there are large black spheres bound around the trunks or branches. These are termites that will eventually kill the tree by eating it away from the inside.

Next Chapter: Bundaberg and the Great Barrier Reef

"But he who is greatest among  you shall be your servant. And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.  Matthew 23:11-12