Northern WA & Crossing the Continent by Train

Great trip report. Kununurra was my old stomping ground in the 80's, and it's good to see that it still looks great. I spent many a time on the Ord River, and places in between. I'm glad you got across to Wyndham and the Five Rivers Lookout, as you really get the scale of the place.
 
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Great trip report. Kununurra was my old stamping ground in the 80's, and it's good to see that it still looks great. I spent many a time on the Ord River, and places in between. I'm glad you got across to Wyndham and the Five Rivers Lookout, as you really get the scale of the place.
Yes the lookout really did provide an appreciation on how big it is.
Kununurra is currently full of tourists which is great for the town, as I’m sure it has suffered recently
 
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We checked out on Thursday and headed back to Kununurra for the last 2 nights.
We headed to Hoochery Distillery for lunch and rum.
A good little spot out of town, with some nice food and coughtails.
After lunch and drinks we headed for a look at ivanhoe crossing and after watching a few cars go through I couldn’t resist crossing it!
We then headed back into town and checked into our cabin and got ready for the sunset dinner cruise at 315pm.
A great little cruise, with some lovely scenery and we parked up for lunch in a lagoon, and had another sensational sunset with constant changing colours.
Dinner was steak, fish and salads and was included, drinks were paid for at the bar.
I stuck with the $5 great northern and let the wife suffer on the wolf blass red label sparkling!

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For Friday we had booked the bungle bungle and lake argyle air tour with Kimberly air tours which commences at 10am
We were picked up from the caravan park and taken to their premises.
We would be taking off from lake kununurra, flying over lake argyle, the argyle diamond mine, the bungles and land in lake argyle for morning tea before returning to lake Kununurra.
The mine had the largest privately owned airport in the Southern Hemisphere until Toowoomba (I think he said) and the runway is bigger then Kununurra with length of 2300m
The mine produced 90 percent of the worlds pink diamonds and when it closed in 2020, prices increased by 400 %

We were assigned seats and scored the exit row with extra legroom. These seats are the last 2 out the back of the plane.
The views were stunning and the aerial view provides an excellent example of how big and remote the area is.
One day we will do the bungles by land, but time preventing us on this occasion.
Today we fly back to Perth with Airnorth and stay one night at the QT, then board the train for Sydney on Sunday.
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It’s been a while since a trip report, with my last being our trip to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in 2019.
Like most since covid19, we have travelled within Australia. During 2020 we spent 8 nights in Noosa, 2021 we spent 2 weeks in Tassie and earlier this year it was 5 nights at Magnetic island.
Late last year we started planning for a holiday mid 2022, at that stage overseas travel felt like years away! So we decided to go somewhere in Aus that we wouldn’t usually go. Mrs HB left it in my hands as usual so we fly out this Saturday heading for the west with the following plan -

ADL-PERTH with VA Y
overnight in Perth
PERTH - KUNUNURRA with VA J
4 nights in Kununurra
2 nights at Lake Argyle
KUNUNURRA - PERTH with Airnorth Y
1 night in Perth
PERTH to SYDNEY on the Indian Pacific in Gold Class twinette room (3n4d)
1 night Sydney
SYDNEY to ADL with Qantas Y

So far we have planned a dinner cruise on lake Kununurra, sunset cruise on lake argyle and a 3 hour scenic flight of the Bungle Bungles.
Open to suggestions of things to do up in northern WA, is Wyndham worth a visit?
We have a hire car for the 6 nights.


Suggest you Google it and/or Tripadvisor Communitiy will give you more info.
 
Thanks Henley, great report. You have got me a little worked up inside. I have lived and worked there twice and had the option to go back last October. Sadly Emperor Mcgowan would not grant me access.
The place really is Gods own back yard, it somehow gets under ones skin and once one has spent any amount of time there, forever is the yearning to go back.

The town has its social issues for sure, but the area in general really can be quite stirring for some people. I was fortunate to get to many communities and explore and get shown some places that few get access too. As well as a few flights over The Bungles..

The best time really is in the New year, everything is green and lush and creeks, rivers and waterfalls abound.

I hope you enjoy the train, The Nullabor is also a very spectacular place in a different way.
 
Great TR. Sorry I missed seeing it earlier. I would have given a shout, mate. I live about 5 minutes from the E Perth rail terminal.

We'll be at Kununurra in three weeks.
I was going to shout out, as we had Saturday night in Perth and didn’t have any plans for dinner, however it was late notice and I thought your diary would be booked out weeks in advance 😜
 
Sunday we boarded the Indian Pacific of the IP as it’s known from East Perth terminal. We arrived around 8-am, checked in, received cab number and pass, then had some light complementary refreshments on the platform.

We boarding at 9-am and our carriage was at the rear of the train next to the lounge bar car, excellent said the wife, I won’t get lost and not far to stumble back to the room.

Our train consist departing Perth was 1xNr class locomotive, 1x monorail, 1x power van at either end of the consist, 3 queen Adelaide restaurant cars, 3x lounge cars, a platinum section in the middle was consisted of 4 cars and a luggage van at the rear, for a total of 27 cars, weighing 1300t.

Our room was facing backwards (seats were opposite to direction of travel) however for the Adelaide to Sydney leg, it will be facing forward, as the locomotive will swap ends.

We boarded and made ourselves comfortable in the room, and prior to departure, the attendant looking after our carriage introduced himself and showed us around in the room.
After the spiel concluded, we headed next door for a pre departure sparkling.

The PD drinks continued after departure and until our lunch sitting of 1215. A good solid
2 hours of a sparkling session, chatting and looking at the beautiful Avon Valley.

Lunch time come and we headed to the restaurant with another couple from Adelaide .
I had the fish and brownie with some Riesling and Port
The fish was lovely and moist, and the Brownie was nice, however rich.

After lunch we headed to our room for a 60min nap, as all fluids and food had wore us out!

We headed back into the lounge car at 415 for some trivia and some sunset drinks.
Dinner tonight was the duck pate, beef cheeks and the cheese platter which was all beautiful.

We arrived into Kalgoorlie around 930pm and the tour included was on a bus, however we decided to pass and have a night cap before settling in to bed
After an ok sleep we woke up at 6-am to alight at a siding called Rawlina on the Nullarbor for sunrise coffee and bacon and egg sliders.
The weather was fresh, but a hot coffee warmed us up and a walk around the little old siding (town) kept us occupied.
The old post office was still visible, as was the old community playground and some old houses.
There were some Barracks there for the track workers when they are on site.

We got back onboard and had another coffee in the lounge car followed by a Bloody Mary.

Shortly after departing Rawlina, we seen some big red kangaroos, quite a few big wedged tailed eagles, watching a couple of these big birds take off was like a 747 trying take off!! Their wingspans are huge and take a while to get going!
A few more bloody Mary’s with some fellow Adelaide passengers and it was brunch time.
For brunch it was the Gammon Steak and the brioche for dessert. A few more bloody Mary’s and the train was out of tomato juice 😱🫣.
Another lay down in the afternoon before arriving at Cook. It was great just laying there staring out the window admiring the vast land!

Cook was once a small railway town with a hospital, school etc, however these days it’s a refuelling point for the locomotives and the changeover point for the drivers.
The Kalgoorlie drivers stop here and rest and in the opposite direction the Port Augusta drivers stop here and rest and the work another train back the next day.
I hadn’t been to Cook for 10 years, and it was good to see some of the trees had grown.
We had a good walk around, checked out the dirty locomotive at the front and headed back into the lounge car for a well earned beer 🤪

Dinner tonight was the prawn dumplings, lamb shank and the tart accompanied with some Hently Farm Shiraz.

All the food was great again, and a quick affogato with baileys and I was ready for bed. It was an early arrival into Adelaide at approx 7-am.
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I was going to shout out, as we had Saturday night in Perth and didn’t have any plans for dinner, however it was late notice and I thought your diary would be booked out weeks in advance 😜

I actually drove past E Perth terminal on Saturday afternoon on the way to watch my grandy play soccer just as the IP was pulling in.

As it turned out, I had a quiet night at home cooking dinner for PJM and my son and grandy. You could have come and made it not quiet. 😜

After your comment about the spare loco on The Ghan, I was surprised that the IP doesn't do that. Any reason?

Good to see that you got quite a bit of daylight travel to watch the world go by. It is something that I did miss on The Ghan.

I'll be going SYD-PER in October, so it will be interesting to see the comparison.
 
There is a lot of time on the train which is nice and relaxing watching the world go by.

Pacific National (PN) don’t operate any trains between Tarcoola & Darwin, therefore as an insurance policy, they have a spare locomotive added on the consist.

PN are the biggest east west train operator and operate heaps of trains across the Nullarbor, therefore if the single locomotive breaks down, it may be only a couple Hours for another locomotive to be pinched from an opposing PN operated freight train.

We have an extra locomotive added in Adelaide for the Sydney leg to due extra horsepower required for the blue mountains
 
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There is a lot of time on the train which is nice and relaxing watching the world go by.

Pacific National (PN) don’t operate any trains between Tarcoola & Darwin, therefore as an insurance policy, they have a spare locomotive added on the consist.

PN are the biggest east west train operator and operate heaps of trains across the Nullarbor, therefore if the single locomotive breaks down, it may be only a couple Hours for another locomotive to be pinched from an opposing PN operated freight train.

We have an extra locomotive added in Adelaide for the Sydney leg to due extra horsepower required for the blue mountains
We loved just lolling and looking out of the window as the world went by - it was great. At a different time we also did just the Syd to Adl leg and then took the Overland from Adl to Mel which was great - a nice few days away.
 

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