East to West, and North to South by train in Australia

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I left you at Adelaide station as I prepared to board The Overland for its trip to Melbourne, although I was to decamp at one of the Geelong stations where I was to be picked up and whisked home by partner Niki.

The car leg was to save time, as it meant I only travelled one side of an equilateral triangle, rather than two as I would have done had I continued on The Overland to Melbourne, then caught a train back to Ballarat.

I took the higher-grade of travel class, called Red Premium. It gave me a carriage with seats arranged in a 2-1 layout, rather than a 2-2 in Red, as well as meals and drinks included and delivered to the seat, rather available for purchase from the cafe car.

The meals were a breakfast, a mid-day meal, and morning and afternoon teas.

I was allocated one of the single seats and the carriage was full. There were two Red class carriages.

There was a baggage carriage, but there was space overhead and at the front of the Red Premium carriage for other bags.
 
The Overland starts its journey with a climb eastwards out of Adelaide through the Adelaide Hills, also known as the Mt Lofty Ranges.

The loco has to make its way through several tunnels and around sharp bends on the climb, and takes it it a steady 50-60kph. Eventually we pass through the station at Mt Lofty at about 720 metres, then start our descent.

Much of this country is forested, with commuter stations dotted along the line. The farmland was grazing land, mostly beef, and there were kangaroos here and there.

The rail alignment joins the main Adelaide to Melbourne road alignment not long after and both rail and road cross the Murray River in close proximity at the aptly-named SA township of Murray Bridge. The road-traffic uses the original rail-bridge, and the rail crossing is now about a hundred metres downstream to its south.
 
Despite crossing the Murray, I was still in South Australia, and not yet home in Victoria. That was still more than 200kms away to the south-east.

The Murray River does describe the border between Victoria and NSW, but not the border between Victoria and South Australia.

The main highway and rail alignments are close for much of the way until it gets to the Wimmera regional centre of Horsham in Victoria. By then the agriculture has become grain - wheat mostly - and dry-land farming. Irrigated country is much farther to the north, this country needs to survive on the meagre rainfall it gets.

There's a loop of rail northwards from Horsham to the grain centre of Murtoa, before it curves south again to rejoin the highway near Stawell.

Then, after departing Ararat less than an hour down the road, the line veers south, again off the main highway link to wend its way to Geelong, rather than take the more direct route through my home-town of Ballarat. I suspect the main reason for this is that there is an existing regular V-Line passenger service running the Ararat-Melbourne service, and V-Line did not want a rival service.

Anyway, this was new country for me to see, although it crossed roads I had travelled on in SW Victoria, and passed by landmarks I could recognise. As dusk approached, we neared the outskirts of Geelong where I disembarked and concluded my Oz journey on rails.
 
I have a couple of pix of the Glenelg tram in Adelaide which is worth a ride from the Adelaide CBD to the beachside suburb of Glenelg.

The line is one of SA's oldest, and has been reconfigured several times from steam heavy, to horse-drawn trolley, to its now tram or light rail service.

It picks up from Adelaide's main thoroughfare King William Street as a standard streetcar/tram service, then runs along its own dedicated off-street line for most of its length until it nears Glenelg, at which time it reverts to a standard street-running tram service to its terminus on the beach.

There are a number of stops along the way, including for Morphettville, Adelaide's main (horse) racecourse. Glenelg is a lovely spot, where restaurants and recreation places abound.
 
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Glenelg must have been named by someone homesick for the Scottish Highlands. I see that there is a Glenelg in the state of Maryland, as well.

I'm sure it is. And, it's a place-name entirely suited to its run-from-either-end tram service.

To make things complete, we'd want the driver to be called Otto, or Anna, or Bob :)
 
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