The Indian Pacific

This year the tenth anniversary of the Indian Pacific Outback Christmas train tour had some unexpected extra's thrown in. The three night/four day trip over more than 4000 km between Sydney and Perth to thank the communities along the tracks, normally includes stops at Bathurst, Broken Hill, Adelaide, Watson, Cook, Rawlinna, Kalgoorlie before it reaches Perth. At each stop a local school choir and onlookers welcome the train with Santa on board. Because of flooding around Bathurst the train had to take the 'Southern Diversion', which ment that Bathurst had to miss out this time. Instead of going straight up the blue mountains, the 23 carriage train had to go via Goulburn and Cootamundra to Parkes to join the usual tracks to Broken Hill.
Entertainment on the train and at the stops consisted, besides Santa,  of Australian rock legends James Reyne and Mark Seymour, accompanied by Cameron McKenzie. 'But the kids mostly look forward to Santa's visit' said Tony Branxton-Smith, the CEO of Great Southern rail who was also onboard. Great Southern Rail sponsors the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) and between Adelaide and Perth a GP from the RFDS joined the trip to explain what his work was about.
The most memorable stop was at Watson, where local kids, family and teachers travelled up to 300 km's to meet the train and greet Santa. Seemingly in the middle of nowhere the train stopped at a tree, the only tree for miles, decorated for the occasion with a comfy chair underneath. The musicians sang their songs, Santa did his thing, train passengers took pictures and talked to the locals. Then a girl, Lauren Willams, and year 2/3 teacher in the audience, mentioned she was bitten by a snake on her toe.

The GP came in handy and luckily there was an ambulance present, the only ambulance for 300 km's. It was decided that the snake, believed to be a yellow faced whip snake, has a potentionally dangerous bite so after a stretch bandage was applied, the girl was taken on a stretcher to the ambulance that would drive her to the airstrip at Maralinga, about 35 km's away (the road to the horizon...) where an RFDS plane would then pick her up. The snake was captured by Bob Sim, the principal of 'nearby' Oak Valley public school, to show and identify the snake. He later released it. In the process he also got bitten, on the finger, but he wouldn't have it to go to hospital... An elderly aboriginal man walked past all the kerfuffle and mentioned that that snake is not poisonous. He then walked off...

Radio Nederland Wereldomroep (in Dutch, on their web site ) and Eumundi Green (a local rag on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia) published the story, besides of course all the other stories on the Indian Pacific train trip from the thirty odd media representatives that were there.