Weekend At Inverell
Sometimes, things are slow.
Weeks go by and you start losing track of the days, mornings blending with nights, weekends whizzing by. You need a break from the screen, you need some fresh air and you need a story to tell your future mentees. With the Christmas holidays quickly approaching, there is no better time than now. Here’s your all-in-one guide to a weekend at Inverell.
The Sapphire City
Inverell is a cozy town nestled in a valley beside the Macintyre river (yeah I haven’t heard of it either) in northern NSW, practically on the border with QLD. Inverell is one of the many settlements that sprung up around mines in the colonial days of NSW and I’ve seen the moniker ‘Sapphire City’ thrown around, supposedly in reference to the Sapphires mined at Inverell. With a population hardly bigger than Glenfield though, it’s more of a Sapphire suburb. Don’t let that sway you! Its quaint size only adds to the allure, as you’ll feel comfortable- almost intimate- with the locals and their livestock by the end of your weekend.
A Nice Trip Into the Outback
Inverell is barely a hop, skip and a jump away from Sydney city, if you happen to have no sense of time. It’ll take a little more than six and a half hours for you to make your way out here via the M1 motorway and whatever other big roads there are up there beyond Newcastle. This length is the equivalent of going to Newcastle, coming back and going back again. More than half the drive is full of rich scenery like concrete and cars. By the time you leave Sydney, it gets even better with rocks and dust decorating the roadside the entire drive. The experience is one to be cherished, and by the end of it you’ll be wishing you had fallen asleep at the wheel and driven off into the only vehicle that passed you on the way.
But maybe you’re one of the few who didn’t get that push from your parents to get your Ps on your 17th. What about you? Today must be your lucky day! You’ll get to experience the wonders of NSW TrainLink, Sydney Transport’s abusive older brother. In the off chance that your train isn’t delayed, cancelled, or departs early, you’ll have the honour and priviledge of spending the next 11 hours of your life on various dingy locomotives from the 80s!
First you’ll be taking the least efficient route from southwest Sydney (where all great adventures begin) to Central, the T2. Starting at Glenfield at 7:35 am this will take you through Liverpool and Cabramatta, then up near Lidcombe and finally over to Strathfield and Newtown before arriving at the all too familiar Grand Central station! By the time your two hour train ride ends and you’re exhausted from all the starting and stopping and the vaping eshays and screaming babies, you’ll find yourself… next to UTS. You came all this way for UTS. A perfect way to set the mood for the trip ahead, which hasn’t even started yet.
We’re Not in Kansas Anymore
You have a perfectly timed 10 minute wait until your train leaves, the single train heading in the direction you want for the entire day. You’re welcome, I planned it for you. But as you happily skip across the concourse, you can’t help but overhear a couple ahead of you heading towards the same platform talking quickly.
Have you got the tickets?
Tickets? We have our Opals
No you idiot, we’re going intercity and we need tickets for the intercity trains!
Your stomach drops. I am smiling. You whip out google on your phone, desperately scrolling to find the intercity trains website. Don’t tell me all this planning was for nothing. You find the website! With 8 minutes to go, you start speed reading.
It turns out intercity trains require tickets and a prior booking, and they won’t even let you on without one. You scroll and tap and scroll and tap, your heart racing. After 60 seconds of panic you are greeted by the comforting orange of the transport website. You type in the first box as you arrive at the platform you’ll soon be boarding the train on, but you are barred from entry without a ticket! C… E… N, as you punch in the letters the familiar Central station shows up on the left of the screen. Now the right side. I… N… V, and the Inverell coach stop reveals itself. Coach stop? Noone told you Inverell isn’t connected by rail? Well too late now! With mere minutes to go, you set the dates and make the purchase. Luckily for you, there’s not many options to choose from. $100 for economy or $130 for first class? Is this a train ride or a flight?? I’ll be in debt for weeks. Okay, now the return trip. 6:30 am or 1:30 pm? I can’t get up at 6, but the alternative is a 17 hour trip where a sleeper carriage is $300 bucks, and it’ll be hours waiting at the interchange?! The conductor yells. There’s no time. You make the purchase, now 450 dollars poorer.
The train rolls out of the station. And the great trek begins. The skyscrapers fade within minutes, morphing into the urban sprawl as you travel North. Epping, Hornsby, the buildings become shorter and more spread out. Soon there are no buildings, only grasslands and a coast that persists along the tracks. As you pass Wondabyne, the carriage bursts into cheer, then silence once more. Woy Woy and Point Clare and other little stops come and go, and then Newcastle, but you keep going! And the ride goes on and on and on. The coast disappears from view permanently as you turn inland, and after enough time the ground becomes level and rocky and dusty. You’re in the outback now. And the train chugs onwards. The sun peaks in the sky. You see skeletons of animals that died of thirst along the track, which is now nothing like what you’re used to in Sydney- no rocky aggregate to mount it, or telephone poles every 50m. You’re surrounded by an empty reddish plane that seems oddly familiar, as if it were something seen in a painting…
And the air begins to cool but the train shows no signs of weakness. It’s 6:30 in the evening and you’re parched and starving. Hours since the last stop. And finally, finally, you hear the guard’s gruff voice through the announcement system. Last stop, Tamworth. You depart the track, as the train lays still, and hardly anyone steps off with you. You have just entered the Tamworth interchange, and it feels like an entirely different country. The air is warmer than it would be in Sydney at this time of day, the flatness of the landscape in stark contrast to the rolling hills of home. With just an 18 minute layover, you have time to get a coffee and take in the view, which you wish your shitty phone camera would capture. The hills in the distance almost remind you of world 1 in NSMBWii. The nostalgia hits hard man. And as soon as you’ve finished your freshly purchased $10 coffee and bit into an equally overpriced salad sandwich you see your coach draw in. It’s time to hit the road.
The Next Few Hours Are a Blur
Up north they drug the sandwiches, it’s how they keep the locals under control. And you’re grateful for it, as the next three hours and twenty minutes pass quicker than they would have had you taken a nyquil and two monsters. You are awakened (as in, are brought back to the present- you were never asleep) by the coach driver gently shaking you by the shoulder. You are enamoured by his hairy, masculine arms. They emanate warmth and an ability to provide for a family. The rugged handsomeness of his face is reminiscent of an era in which men would fight wild animals with nothing but their fists. But he is not your lover, it was not meant to be.
You stumble out of the coach with your backpack as the drugs wear off. Where are we? The little coach stop you’ve landed yourself in is just flat and brown, with some little tin sheds and a small strip mall behind you. It reminds you of the ‘free dirt’ store that Billy and Stan drive past in My Cousin Vinny.
You whip out your phone and you’re truly grateful there’s reception, without which you would surely die lost and alone stumbling through the bush. 10 minutes and 600m later, you find yourself facing the Inverell motel. Go on inside, I booked a room for ya.
The locals are friendly, and not racist. This is a welcome change from Sydney. In fact, they’re pretty chatty (or maybe just impressed that you can speak English) and by the time you’ve grabbed a burger for dinner, gotten the keys and reached your room it’s 9pm. A charming little room, it’s spacious for a single person. You cry yourself to sleep as you are harshly reminded that you will be forever single.
Morning In Inverell
You feel brilliant, you’re here on your own far away from home and clearly self suffient enough to have found accommodation and food. You’re welcome. The air is different here. Is it purer? As you head downstairs, the landlord offers you breakfast and your grin is so big you can feel the sides of your mouth splitting.
Munching through cornflakes, you go back and forth talking about your lives and how the big city is kinda different to the country, but kind of the same. It doesn’t help that everyone’s been to Sydney and you almost feel a little protective when they complain about the traffic there or the train problems, the cost of living or how everyone is glued to their phones. Maybe the criticism hits a little close to home. But they’re right about the phones, because up here everyone is busy working and even the teens don’t seem to acknowledge the rectangle of magic sitting in their pockets.
You finish your cereal and toast (the landlord offered you some bacon and eggs but as a vegan you declined) and head for the door. It’s time for the hardest part of your journey of self-discovery, the self-discovery. You reflect on your friends and family, on your life and work and uni and music and art and the way the universe is. Big thoughts for little you. You admire the nature around you and can’t help but feel ashamed that you expected a little green English hamlet tucked away, when instead you got this brown suburban Ingleburn-esque town that honestly doesn’t feel too different to Kiama in terms of demographic and vibe, and Kiama is practically home compared to how far away you are.
What’s There to Do?
You have a quick look at the newsagency, because it is the modern day equivalent of the post office and in your opinion it defines the character of any town. You’re surprised at how similar it looks and feels to your own suburb, from the squiggles of tar on the roads to the dull brick buildings. After an early lunch, it’s almost 1:00 pm and time to head home. You make your way to the coach stop, hardly a 20 minute walk that goes across the entire town. On the way you look at the schools and churches, and are in awe of the fact people are born, live, work and die without ever leaving this place. You compare it to the story of the frog in the well, who talks to the frog outside the well. Then you remember that that’s an allegory for the fact we’re all trapped on this finite sphere, and remember why you stopped doing this ‘thinking’ thing.
There’s No Place Like Home
The coach is pulling in, and you feel in your pockets for some change to pick up another sandwich. Not that you are conscious enough to appreciate it, but the coach takes you past some truly beautiful scenery on the way to Grafton, mountains and valleys, and at Grafton you sluggishly fall out of the seat, fall out of the coach, and fall into the silver seats that look as though they have been lifted straight out of your primary school and transported here. By some miracle, you’re not mugged and your shoes are still on your feet when you wake up, and the alarm you so carefully set before you left is just loud enough to prompt you towards the train at Grafton station when it pulls in at 8:45 pm. Heaving your body through the open door, you collapse on the first seat you find. You did it, and your fate is in the conductor’s hands now.
The next you open your eyes, your watch reads 6:55 am Monday morning, and you’re sitting in the train that’s stationary at Central- set to leave for some distant town in five minutes.
Feeling suspiciously refreshed, you leave the train, and head towards good old 23 (the platform, duh), ready to hit the ground running for a final week of productivity and fun at work before break.
This story was inspired by a 3 hour episode of insanity where I convinced myself that I had to go to Inverell right that weekend. As many of my friends tried to tell me in that moment, it turns out I did not have to go to Inverell. And so I saved myself upwards of $500 and a potentially dangerous (or even worse, boring) experience. Inverell will forever hold a place in my heart as a reminder of what could have been, and I hope to stop by one day in the future- though maybe just as part of a road trip with friends, and not a weekend where I spend 30 of the 48 hours travelling while I convince myself that I am somehow self-discovering. Thanks for reading, and prayers for that trip!