I boarded the 380 bus bound for Bondi Beach at Bondi Junction one warm summer afternoon.

An older gentleman is sitting opposite me. Soon after the bus leaves Bondi Junction, he catches my eye, smiles at me and says: “Gung Hei Fatt Choy”.

Smiling, I reply “Thanks, but it’s a bit late for the New Year.” (Chinese New year has come and gone)

Undeterred, he goes on “Ni hao, ma? Can I say that in the afternoon?”

I reply “You can say it anytime of the day.”

He quips”My Chinese is pretty good, huh? That’s the only two things I know to say”.

I just smile. Actually he knows one phrase in Mandarin and another in Cantonese.

With the ice broken, we chat for the remaining duration of his journey. By the time he gets off at his stop on Bondi Road, I have discovered that he just turned 91 and that he drove the mail train to Mudgee for 45 years. He started out shoveling coal for the train’s boiler and eventually rose to the position of driver.

When we get to his stop, he leaves me with these parting words just before he ambles off : “It’s good to be alive, isn’t it? It’s better than being dead”.

I didn’t find out his name and often wonder what happened to him and whether I will ever see him again.

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The Mudgee mail train departed from Central Station in Sydney each day, usually at night. It would be full of mail bags, urgent boxes of material goods for country shops and urgent breakdown parts of farm machinery. It also had passenger cars.

The train’s route took it up through the Blue Mountains, twisting and turning through some of Australia’s prettiest scenery until finally it started to drop down into the coal mining town of Lithgow situated at the foot of the Blue Mountains. From Lithgow the trip was slow as the train stopped at all stations through the night dropping off mail bags and goods for that particular area, until it finally reached the large township of Mudgee.

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