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just to stretch our legs. When we get out, it feels like someone has aimed a blow-dryer at our faces and
switched it to high. (Also, the blow-dryer was filled with black flies.)
At last, on day four, we make it over the Blue Mountains, marking the end of the Outback. The signs of
civilization are everywhere now. We know we've reached the end of authentic Outback when towns start
labeling themselves “Outback towns,” with hokey Outback-themed billboards and signs. A true Outback
town never needs to point it out. It's evident—because all you see, in every direction, is Outback.
When we get to Sydney, we drop the car off at the rental agency office, near the airport. We take a final
look at our trusty chariot. Its hood, front fenders, and windshield are a riot of animal matter. We see bird
feathers, enormous insect wings, and pasty green guts of unknown provenance. “I want to do DNA testing
to see how many species we have stuck to our car,” says Rebecca. “I wouldn't be surprised to find a fully
intact roo head lodged behind the grille.”
The cheerful woman at the return counter asks where we're headed next, and we tell her we need to get
to Brisbane. “Oh, easy, just an hour's flight,” she says, assuming we're headed to the airport right now.
When we tell her we're actually taking the train, she looks stunned. “Why? You see nothing but trees!” she
laughs. “Trees, trees, and more trees!”
WHEN you're traveling long distances without airplanes, and trying to see everything in between, you'll
by necessity gloss over a few places that you really wish you hadn't. Such is the case with Sydney. A world-
class city, and yet tragically we can spend just a single day here if we're going to catch our freighter up in
Brisbane. There's only time enough to take a ferry around the harbor, past the legendary opera house, and
then to visit the spectacular zoo. (The zoo's captive roos have a crazy gleam in their eyes, as though they're
looking for car wheels to jump under.) A quick walk around the stately downtown suggests it's what might
result if you scraped up a few square miles of London and plopped them down in Santa Monica.
To figure out the train schedule to Brisbane and make reservations, I call an automated phone line. It
asks me to speak my answers to its questions, but the computer doesn't recognize my words when I talk
American. I scramble to imitate an Australian accent, and quickly find the key is to use the extreme rear-
upper reaches of my mouth. It all flows from there. Once I slip into a dead-on Crocodile Dundee impres-
sion—“foive a'claawk”—I have no problems.
We catch an overnight train out of Sydney in the afternoon. It's still light out, and as we clackalack along
we're treated to a rolling panorama. Far from just trees, as the woman at the rental car counter had sugges-
ted, we're seeing lakes surrounded by rocky hills, and grassy fields full of frolicking horses. It's gorgeous
countryside. On a plane, we'd never see all these details far below beneath the clouds. And the train moves
at a civilized amble that invites us to gaze aimlessly, to let our minds drift, and to ruminate on where we've
come from and where we're going.
I'm congratulating myself yet again on having hewed to the earth's surface, when I get a sudden, jarring
reminder that it cuts both ways. A strung-out, junkie-looking woman and her tear-stained daughter board
the train after sunset and sit right behind us. The woman starts zombie-shuffling up and down the aisle,
her pupils dilated like hockey pucks. Her daughter is restless, and the woman can't handle it. “Alexis, lie
down!” she yells over and over, slurring her words in a thick Australian accent.
The junkie mommy is keeping the whole car awake with her shouting. If we were on the plane, this
ordeal would have been over in an hour (and likely never would have happened—I'm fairly certain this
woman is in possession of hard drugs, which is why she didn't want to go through airport security). On the
train, with its accursed gentle pace, the misery lasts all night.
When we at last reach Brisbane at 5:00 a.m., I'm woozy and miserable. And, to my horror, I sort of wish
I'd flown.
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