A Trip To Nowhere

Thursday found me lusting to point my finger at the transport map and just follow it to some new place again. There are three criteria for these adventures. 1.) The place has to be on the ocean. 2.) It has to be at the end of a rail line. And 3.) It must be someplace I have not been before.

This day, the spot selected was Newcastle, about 80 miles northeast of Sydney. I don't know why. I know nothing of the place, other than that it meets my three criteria.

Well, as I headed north, I noticed that the time was getting later and later. My transportation map doesn't show all the stops on the line, so I really had no idea how much further it was to Newcastle. But the conductor kept calling out coming stops and NONE of them were Newcastle.

Matt and Janice and I had plans to go out for pizza that night. I had no phone and no 'puter, hence no way to contact them. Otherwise, I would have gone on to Newcastle, taken a hotel and returned the next day. But, being out of touch, I was concerned that they would be worrried about me if I just failed to return from my day's adventures.

And so, at 3:30, I got off the train at a nowhere nothingness called Cockle Creek, switched to the other side of the tracks and waited for a train heading back to the city. Essentially, I more or less wasted a day riding the rails. But not entirely. Because along the way, I discovered an area known as the Hawkesbury River, which leads inland from the sea about 20 miles or more. From the flatness of Sydney, I suddenly noticed that the landscape had changed into a succession of crenellated hillsides with many valleys and a large body of water in between. It reminded me of some place I had seen before, but it took me several minutes to dredge up that recollection from the dim recesses of my brain.

In Nova Scotia, on Cape Breton Island, there is a vast inland sea known as Bras D'or, or, in French, the arms of gold. I realized that what I was seeing was very, very similar to my memories of Bras D'Or. Taking pictures out of train words is not usually a way to get good results, especially when moving. And so I have pressed Google Images into service here, so you can get an idea of what I saw.

So my trip to nowhere really was not all for naught. I'm going back next week and will spend the night in Newcastle. And I will stop in the Hawkesbury River region to get a better look at it from on the ground.

Stay tuned!