Sydney to Perth – Australia

I like a treat but sometimes I don’t know what to do when I get one. The Indian Pacific was a prime example of this. A train journey travelling between Sydney and Perth taking three days and nights with two locomotives clocking up 4,352 kilometres at a maximum speed of 110km/hr, guzzling 58,000 litres of diesel, pulling 700 metres of carriages, 200 passengers, and weighing in at 1,400 tonnes. I did this journey back in 2008, sat in the back two carriages where we had to fend for ourselves and sleep in chairs that reclined no more than a Ryanair seat. As fun as it was, I promised never to repeat such a feat of endurance. However, I was happy to repeat the journey in the forward cabins with all the richer people who had the luxury of lying flat at night after being wined and dined all day long. Our Australia tour has been one month-long treat in all honesty, but the Indian Pacific was the big one and we boarded full of excitement for our trans-Australia crossing and a free bar with a tinge of apprehension that we would be the youngest people on board by about three decades. As the train rumbled slowly out of Sydney we waited patiently in our wee en-suite cabin for the steward to come along and introduce us to the journey, as soon as she disappeared we whipped out the cheese and tomato sandwiches wrapped in a plastic bread bag. I couldn’t have been happier. We had spent the previous two hours in a café at the train station helping ourselves to piles of sandwiches, pies, salads, and cakes, washed down with G&T as we waited to board. It seemed nonsensical not making the most of an all-inclusive trip. The cheese and tomato sandwiches had been smuggled on board for the simple fact that we had a heap of left-over food from the Air B&B, food that I was not prepared to waste. We would see plenty of food go to waste on the train from other passengers, but I don’t see a luxury treat like this as a moment to show off by wasting fancy food and good drink. No, this is a moment to fatten up and get back as much of the ticket price as is humanely possible and without putting my health at serious risk.

Three days after visiting the Blue Mountains we passed by again but this time under much finer conditions that enabled us to actually see them. For the first time in weeks we had nowhere to be and we could sit in comfort away from people, watching the setting sun as the train gradually picked up a bit of speed. The inevitable then arrived, dinner. We headed to the lounge car and learnt that the done thing was to grab a wine and sit and wait patiently for a nice chap to come and ask if we were ready for dinner who would then leads us to the dining car where we would be served a delicious three course meal. Surely we wouldn’t get to sit at our own table? No, we wouldn’t, and thus emerged the first issue of luxury train travel for me, socialising with strangers two to three times a day. Almost every meal presented a new couple, most of which were wonderful people but repeating the same conversation time and again just becomes bloody annoying. Lesson one, do train travel in groups of four so you can share a table together. Needless to say, we survived the first meal and as with apparently most of the diners, my doubts about never getting to sit down in a crowded lounge car soon disappeared. We duly took advantage of the space and the free-flowing wine and gin while attempting to watch the Lionesses beat Australia in the World Cup. I don’t know if this is a feature of luxury train travel but I never felt like I knew what was going on and where I needed to be and when. While attempting to eat and drink the value of my ticket on the very first night I was in no state to be told over the intercom at 9pm that our off-train excursion would begin at 6am the following morning. Not in a million years would I be getting up at this time to be guided around an empty outback town by a drag queen. This was supposed to be the easy leg of our journey. I continued with my wine and gin.

I woke on day two to instantly scramble for my phone and write down all the notes that had materialised in my head during the previous night which have been reconstituted into the following passage. Contrary to the 12 tonnes of CO₂ I’ve so far released through flying this year I’m rather environmentally conscious and I get quite excited about solar panels and air source heat pumps, or when I hear things like Europe reintroducing sleeper trains as alternatives to internal flights. The air source heat pump is just around the corner, but I can now provide a reasonable account of a night onboard a sleeper train and I begin by simply asking, why!? For the love of God, why!? Three nights and days to do what a plane can do in four hours while providing the option to sleep in a bed on arrival that doesn’t shake your teeth out. Long distance rail travel is one of those odd things in life where we pay so much more for less in the perception of luxury. Most European loving, anti-Brexit folk will have accused people who dared to vote a different way for dreaming of returning to a distant past. Yet the same European loving folk will be beating the drum for sleeper trains as a slower pace of travel and above all more environmentally friendly. What rubbish. I didn’t sleep a wink, it felt like sleeping in a coffin, and I’m pro-stop-boiling-the-world. The Indian Pacific was indeed luxurious and an absolute treat despite my grumbling and the fact my glass of red wine will have vibrated six inches away from where I last put it down. It is significantly cheaper than a long-haul business class ticket and a far richer experience. But that’s why I did it, the experience. I also jumped on a plane from Sydney to Brisbane and back in one day because I didn’t have time for the train; a 24 hour round trip versus a three hour round trip. I want to slow down travel and ween off planes for many reasons, including the environment, but how are we going to get people who don’t care about earth to lose sleep on a train in order to save it? Lesson two, get the train to pull over at night for greater success with sleeping.

My mood was soothed with a three-course breakfast as we passed through an expanse of desert heading out of New South Wales and into South Australia. A wonderfully chilled out morning back at our cabin took hold before heading back to the dining car for a three-course lunch where the scenery had turned to a large expanse of farmland a little like Cambridgeshire but infinitely larger. We pulled into Adelaide, hopped onto a coach, and headed off to visit a winery in an effort to improve my sensory skills. The weather was miserable, but Rut and I made do with shorts, I think largely to cause shock and amusement throughout the largely Australian passenger base who were wrapped up for Arctic conditions despite the lack of actual cold. From the winery we headed to a restaurant by the sea that served up yet another incredible three-course meal washed down by litres of wine. By 8pm it was time to head back to the train, however we waited in the restaurant for 10 minutes to allow the older, less mobile people to get to, and board the coach. Feeling chuffed we had given ourselves a little more wine time we headed to the coach to be met by an old lady lying on the floor with blood leaking from her head. Queue the doctor who has an incredible ability to switch immediately into a serious and highly focused source of good to humanity, and then me, the less focused assistant who is actually quite good at just doing as he’s told in such moments. Such moments are surprisingly common and piss me off because we’re supposed to be on holiday but even I have enough empathy to acknowledge it comes with the territory, and at least I’m not the one who has to decide if an old dear desperate to board a train that is about to go into one of the remotest parts of Australia for the next 24 hours should in fact be recommended for hospitalisation. On arrival to the station 30 minutes late, Rut jumped off the coach in her white hotpants, asked for the train manager who happened to be anxiously waiting (not because of the medical issue but because her train was delayed), promptly kissed her Argentinean style, and then proceeded to give serious medical recommendations. 

I actually slept rather well the second night onboard and woke to find ourselves entering the Nullarbor Plain, a treeless expanse of desert covering an area almost twice that of England and boasting the longest stretch of straight railway in the world at 478 kilometres. The day continued a lot like the day before although with less time off the train and no medical emergencies. The third night rolled on by to reveal the simply beautiful landscape of southwestern Australia, one of my favourite parts of the world, and before we knew it we were pulling into Perth, back where we had started three weeks previous. I was happy to leave the train yet also sad for it to be ending. If I could travel the world on a train that wined and dined me while allowing me to sleep peacefully and without the sensation of being in a tumble drier I would. Until that time, and when I have the time, the incredible innovation of flight will have to do. Lesson 3, the Indian Pacific should be done at least once.