Keeping it rail

This is a (slightly rushed) travel feature about a press trip from Sydney to Perth by rail I went on a couple of weeks ago. It was a lot of fun - I will post some pictures and extra tales if I get time.

Taking Christmas to the outback

A long silver train has halted in the middle of a vast, empty plain that stretches away as far as the eye can see in all directions. There is no station, no platform and the nearest human settlement is a bumpy two hours drive away across the dusty bush. Nonetheless an excited crowd of Aboriginal children and adults has gathered to meet the train. Four young men climb down from one of the carriages, incongruously dressed for the burning 40C heat in smart black shirts, bright red ties and impossibly shiny patent leather shoes. It looks like a visitation from another planet. Then the well-tailored men start singing a cappella, the children join in, and this bleak outback scene is transformed into a heart-warming celebration of togetherness. More than a few of those watching find themselves holding back tears.

This is probably the strangest concert boy band Human Nature have performed since they formed at school in Sydney 17 years ago. The group is here in Watson, a remote South Australian community in the middle of the immense Nullarbor Plain, as guests on this year’s Indian Pacific Christmas train. The annual service, carrying a popular Australian singer or group and an ever-jovial Santa, aims to bring festive cheer to some of the most isolated people living along the rail route. This year Human Nature performed songs from their latest album of Motown covers – hence their snappy dressing, although reasonably enough they left off their suit jackets in Watson.

The Indian Pacific is one of the world’s great railway journeys. Cutting all the way across the continent, between the two oceans that give the service its name, the train offers a means of experiencing Australia’s vastness in comfort. Travelling the 4,352km between Sydney and Perth by rail takes you three-and-a-half days and transports you from bustling city suburbs to eerie ghost towns and wild bush landscapes.

Gazing out of the train window, you get fleeting glimpses of the outback’s tough beauty and austere way of life: lonely farmsteads surrounded by rusting utes and crumbling sheds, sheep grazing on salt lakes, towering mine works, crooked skeletal trees poking out of a land that often looks more dead than alive. This is Australia’s backyard, where much of its national identity was forged. Flying from coastal city to coastal city cuts out the country’s heart; the Indian Pacific is a way of getting from A to B that reminds you about all the forgotten Cs and Ds in between.

Many people worry they will get bored on such a long train journey, but the time passes much quicker than you might expect – it’s worth bringing a good book, but you may not get very far into it. Chatting to fellow passengers in the lounge bar and enjoying the excellent on-board meals whiles away the hours, but the main attraction is the remarkably varied scenery. You can spend hours just watching the soil colour turn from rusty brown to faded orange to burnt red. The land rises and falls, moving from dramatically plunging valleys in the Blue Mountains to the flat monotony of the Nullarbor. If you look carefully you might see kangaroos or the graceful Australian wedge-tail eagle that is the symbol of the Indian Pacific. On bendy stretches of track you can see the train stretching out in front of you like a silver snake sliding its way through the bush. Watching the world go by has never been so mesmerising.

This is not to say that you won’t appreciate the regular stops. After a while staggering down the corridor of a shuddering train carriage becomes second nature, but it is still a relief to get back onto a surface that doesn’t shake under your feet. Many travellers break their journey halfway in Adelaide and spend a couple of days enjoying the city’s mellow atmosphere and outstanding food and wine. The Indian Pacific’s other stops are likely to be places you haven’t visited before. Normal services don’t call at Watson, but they do halt at the once-thriving railway community of Cook (present-day population: two) and the colourful Western Australian mining town of Kalgoorlie, whose seedy-but-charming pubs are an experience in themselves. Tours of several of the towns along the route are available as long as the train is running on time.

By the time the train pulled into East Perth station, my head was full of the wild, strange country that fills the huge spaces between Australia’s cities. After a series of brief encounters with the simple, hard life of the outback, it was a jolt to return to the impatient buzz of urban streets. The Indian Pacific reminds you that travelling is about more than just reaching your destination: my flight from Perth back to Sydney took only three-and-a-half hours, but what it saved in time it took away in experiences.