The long haul home

This scene was the daily drudge for five years of my life - first as a student and then as an employee at a large corporate. The sixty kilometres per day in a train taught me that it is possible to sleep sitting upright... and it is possible to (*don't try this at home) land safely after diving out of a train window because you've overslept and nearly missed your station.

We recently had the pleasure of catching the train again for the first time in 10 years. The trains are still the same old trains - minus the aluminium baggage racks, which I'm pretty sure were stolen and sold as scrap metal. That said, as much as things stay the same, some things do change. In this case, the presence of armed security guards was the most apparent. There were (seriously) no fewer than 5 fully-armed, flak-jacketed security guards on the coach we were in. While looking perfectly approachable, all five had "don't mess with us" looks on their faces. I'm guessing that the intention is for them to discourage criminals from even boarding the train.

Although the train was no where close to the standard of trains in Paris, Singapore or Sydney, it was a pretty interesting ride along the Simon's Town route. 25 ZAR buys a ticket from Cape Town station all the way to Simon's Town and back - allowing the traveller to hop on and hop off at any stop along the way.