AnswerID: 614640

Fellow ReadersThankyou Stephen for your postings. It was great to attend and meet fellow EO members.As others have said the weather gods had their bit of fun with attendees - still that's the Outback. And those pesky little prickles (note to self - sock savers next time).For me the event was a culmination of the contribution of my grandfather who worked on the line construction as a ganger and my own various experiences over a 40 yr period. It was poignant to take in the location and consider the wonderful nation building work that took place and the scale of that, without the benefits of mechanization travel and communications we take for granted today. And too boot it was done in the middle of WW1.Special thanks to all who contributed to make the occasion happen without the benefit of any direct government funding, ARTC for the monuments, Dick Smith and Arkaroola along with the Australian Rail Museum and many other in-named contributes in both finance and time. Special thanks to the "Dunny Man" for the unique experience of odor free Portaloos - it shows it is possible.The lack of Politicians had an upside in that it allowed an ambience and unfettered enjoyment of the moment to prevail by those who really appreciated the unique opportunity without having press crews and politicians take the limelight. Perhaps there was a lot of washer cutting in the halls of power with pending constitutional matters and the sheer difficulty of actually getting to outback Australia - I mean a small plane landing on a small dirt strip with significant cross winds and no frequent flyer points, limo or Qantas or Virgin Club at the airport - really (being sarcastic LOL) . Anyway we did not have to sit too long in the sun listening to boring speeches.I attach the following taken at sunriseRegardsPete_G