Adelaide, Australia
4 Apr 2011
First sabbatical
Silent instants
Three days ago, I've boarded The Indian Pacific train from Kalgoorlie to Adelaide. A trip that would count as the longest stretch on rails I've covered — and probably will ever cover — in my life. A total of 2,155 km, approximately four times the length of Portugal, just about 55 hours spent sitting inside a train cabin. I truly had no idea what I had signed for, but I was still, nevertheless, quite excited about it.
The first five hours of the trip, circa 500km, were covered in a straight line across the Nullarbor Plain — the plain with no trees— one of the largest, flattest limestone plains in the world. This endless landscape resembles a flat golden brown pancake served with a vast horizon on top. The only change of scenary is the sky, whose clouds tend to paint according to their temper.
I finished Bukowski's Factotum, a paperback I had swapped in Albany's guesthouse
