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Published: January 19th 2024
Tour Days 94-95 – First, I knew Australia was big just by looking at a map; however, I didn’t realize just how big. When compared to the contiguous 48 states (the lower 48), the United States is 3.2 million square miles (8.1 million km 2) while Australia is about the same – 3 million square miles (7.8 million km 2). Initially, I was planning to rent a car and drive around Australia; however, I discovered a web site,
campermanaustralia.com, which has several road trip variations for discovering Australia. The web site prefaces the trips on digesting Australia and not just sniffing this diverse country. The straight-forward trip, the “Circumnavigation Around Australia,” is 17,100 km (10,625 mi.) takes 244 hours of driving time and requires 3 months or more. Of course, just following the coast omits the central desert region, including Uluru, the Olgas, and Coober Pedy. The “I-Don't-Want-to-Miss-a-Thing Road Trip Around Australia” is 20,300 km (12,614 mi.) takes 293 hours of driving time and requires 4 months or more. I ruled out driving as an option.
Plan B still included stops in Cairns (Great Barrier Reef), Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, but I didn’t want to fly from city
to city. The visitor to Australia, or any country for that matter, who only flies over the country or only stops at a cruise ship port has not seen the country. They might have seen Buenos Aires, but they haven’t seen Argentina. I decided to investigate taking the rails from city to city. Even though I would have less interaction with the Aussies in the hinterland, I would have at least seen some of the countryside and the villages and, hopefully, have met some of their countrymen while in transit.
The Outback spans nearly three-quarters of the continent yet supports only about 800,000 people, less than 5% of the entire population of Australia (26 million in 2022). I guess the question to ask is, “Why? Why do you want to see The Outback?” The first and standard answer is, precisely, because it’s there. The Outback is not a specifically identified plot of land but an amorphous, sparsely populated area of Australia, so I cannot report an exact size. The Nullarbor Plain is a geographical feature in Western Australia and South Australia that occupies about 200,000 square kilometers (77,000 square miles) and stretches about 1,100 kilometers (684 miles) from east
to west at its widest point. Nullarbor comes from Latin; nulla is feminine of nullus, or "no," and arbor, or "tree," and parts of the plain are, indeed, treeless. The Nullarbor has a desert climate, with arid to semi-arid conditions and daytime temperatures close to 50 °C (122 °F).
As I was planning this adventure, I was delighted to find Journey Beyond which offers four Australian rail adventures – The Ghan, the Indian Pacific, the Great Southern and The Overland. Of course, all the trains travel in both directions, and each excursion has variations changing the starting/ending points as well as the duration of the trip. I was focused on Indian Pacific, the route that runs from Perth on the Indian Ocean to Sydney on the Pacific Ocean, thus Indian Pacific. Whether traveling the Indian Pacific east to west or vice versa, there is a stop in in Adelaide where one can begin or end their journey. In order to make this work, I needed the westbound Indian Pacific to get me to Perth in time for a flight to Singapore so I could begin the cruise on 20 JAN. With only seven days between the arrival of the
Indian Pacific in Perth and the departure of ms Westerdam from Singapore, there would, unfortunately, be little time to explore either of those cities.
My Adelaide, Australia hotel seemed to have been designed for the traveler who was an early arrival or, as was my case AND, a late departure. A spacious countertop that was used for dining during breakfast (particularly by singles) had easily assessable, convenient USB ports as well as electrical outlets. The only meal offered was the included breakfast so “being in the way” during lunch or dinner was not an issue after breakfast cleanup was completed. I had used the hotel’s complimentary luggage storage service upon my early arrival - remember, the train was sold out so I flew instead of taking the 10 ½–hour train trip from Melbourne. After I checked out and stowed my luggage, I set up a workstation in the breakfast room and got (mostly) caught up with my photos and blogs and got a couple of other “housekeeping” items removed from the “to do” list.
I mentioned the “Flavours of South Australia welcome dinner” offered by Journey Beyond Rail In my last blog post. Well, Thursday, not Wednesday, was
the day of the extravaganza at the Adelaide Parklands railroad station, the only station in the world where passengers can board trains on both north–south and east–west transcontinental routes. I arrived to find the facility abuzz with activity. My check in was smooth. My small suitcase and backpack were to be delivered to my berth while my large suitcase was to go to the baggage car. Soon I had a beer in my hand as I listened to renditions from well-known balladeers such as John Denver, Simon and Garfunkel and Joni Mitchell and chatted with my fellow travelers. This was a new experience for everybody I met at the gala (I learned later that some had made the journey some 20, 30, or even 40 years ago), and that this truly was a learn-as-you-go for most. I will fast forward periodically to expedite your learning curve. During check in, I was given a coach assignment (A) – oops, a carriage assignment, I’m in Australia you know – and a berth assignment (4), AND I was told which table I was to sit at for dinner – Table 1. When the dinner hour arrived, couples were instructed to sit across from
each other while singles were paired to accomplish the same seating/conversation-enhancing arrangement. The single across from me, David, was an Englishman who owns homes in Costa del Sol, Spain and London and splits his time between countries as climatic changes dictate. The husband of a couple from Perth, Peter, sat to my left (I was at the end of the table so there was nobody to my right) while his wife, Peta, sat next to David. We had a great time and got to know a little about each other and our travel experiences.
Fast forward – After dinner, we learned the train was arranged in several segments. Our “village” consisted of six carriages. Carriage A was all single berths, Carriages B, C, and D were larger to accommodate more than one passenger, Carriage E was the “family room” which I called the Parlor Car and Carriage F was the restaurant, the Dining Car. I had no need to venture more forward than Carriage F and don’t know the nomenclature of the remainder of the train. This is just meaningless trivia UNTIL ….
After dinner, we walked to our respective carriages and boarded the train – Carriage A
was quite a jaunt. Fast forward – I learned as we were retrieving our luggage in Perth that the last carriage was Carriage Q. I found Berth 4, and my small suitcase and backpack we there, as expected. As instructed earlier, I waited for our attendant to arrive and overheard her making her way from berth to berth offering explanations and answering questions – Berth 4, not a long wait at all. Since the journey is all-inclusive, and should be for the price, I headed for the Parlor Car for a nightcap. I usually drink Chivas Regal neat as it is a very popular Scotch whisky in America and is readily available in restaurants and lounges. Lo and behold, my go-to brand was the house Scotch! As I was chatting with a couple of familiar faces, David appears, soon joined by Peter and Peta! The dots began to connect as we realized that all the diners at Table 1 were housed in the same “village.” Let’s all sing together, “Getting to know you, Getting to know all about you, …”
I had a miserable first night for two reasons. First was the launching from side to side. This was
not a train problem but a railway problem and was not mere swaying; this was catapulting left to right and then back again four or five times every ten minutes or so. Finally, we must have gotten to a straight section of tracks, and I fell asleep for a spell before being jolted from my sleep again. Over and over, again and again, all night long! In the end, I probably got 2–3 hours of frequently interrupted sleep. Second, the bed was about 2/3 the size of a twin bed, and there were raised edges on the sides to prevent the mattress from sliding off the bed. With the frequent thrusting, that’s a GREAT thing, but finding my arm or knee on a hard object, as I moved from back to side between launchings, was just plain … not comfortable.
Friday, I made my way to the Parlor Car and got a cup of long black. One doesn’t just order coffee except in America (or aboard ship). For some time, I had been drinking Americano but graduated to long black while I was in New Zealand. After two cups, made specifically by the cup for THAT customer, I was
ready to face food. Oh, yes, there are no free refills, except here in the all-inclusive environment! Dining is like a restaurant in that a hostess seats you at a table, but it’s like aboard a ship in that there is no “table for one or two,” every table is for four and all the seats are filled whenever possible. Dining with strangers is the norm, and, in my opinion, if two couples take the trip together and then dine together as well, they're missing out on half of the adventure. On this morning, there were three of us seated together – a young Italian woman, who spoke adequate English to conduct a conversation, and her mother, who knew the elementary phrases and words. Mamma definitely spoke more English than I do Italian! They were from northern Italy, and were surprised to learn that I had been in their zip code last summer. As the hostess would have it, I had lunch with the same duo! When I arrived, they had already been seated with a young Asian woman from Sydney that, for whatever reason, wasn’t really eager to participate in the conversation.
After lunch and as I was
going back to my berth, I spotted David through the open door to his berth reading a book, a good one I’m sure because why would one get past chapter one of a bad,
optional work! We planned a pre-dinner rendezvous in the Parlor Car. Midafternoon found the train making a scheduled water stop at Cook. Cook, named after the sixth Prime Minister of Australia, Joseph Cook, was established in 1917 when the Trans-Australian Railway was built. The town was a major center for track maintenance and a repair center for locomotives and rolling stock and supported a school and a hospital. The reliability of modern diesel locomotives reduced Cook’s importance, and the town was effectively closed in 1997. In 2009, Cook was said to have a resident population of four. We emerged from the train to find a temperature of 41°C (105°F) which was too warm to drive fence posts but manageable for an Arizonan and, yes, it too was a dry heat.
We made our second stop of the day at Rawlinna Station, Australia’s largest operating sheep station. Interestingly, Rawlinna Station is situated on the longest section of completely straight track in the world – 478 kilometers
(297 miles). According to South Australian astronaut Andy Thomas, the line is identifiable from space because of its unnatural straightness. At Rawlinna Station, we were treated to a group dinner with open seating and served family style under the starlit NOT (overcast) skies of Western Australia. Saturday morning, David and I again rendezvoused in the Parlor Car for coffee and then had breakfast with a couple from Munich, Germany. We met again for lunch; however, this was an international amalgamation – a Brit, David, and this American were paired with a couple who now lives in New Zealand. He is a Kiwi by birth, but his wife is a Canadian. They met while working together for fifteen years in South Korea and have lived, albeit for shorter periods, in other parts of Oceana and Asia. Of course, they have traveled extensively in the areas I’ll be visiting during my six-week cruise and thoroughly endorsed my decision to embark on a land tour of South Korea as a concluding chapter to my 2023-2024 vacation.
The Indian Pacific! The propaganda was excellently prepared and set my expectations high – possibly too high, particularly the stop at Cook. The comradery was awesome,
perfected over years of experience, I’m sure. Seating the occupants of “Neighborhood 1” at Table 1 for the “Welcoming Dinner” set the table (tongue pushing hard against cheek) for some interesting dialogue in the Parlor Car and at mealtime. A two-night trip caused me to expect to be on the train for more that 45 or so hours. Everything ran as smooth as silk, i.e., ticketing, luggage handling, etc. The staff was suburb – a greeting with every encounter, always smiling, cheerful, never a scowl or hint of negativity. My bed was deployed and stowed in a timely manner. The balladeer was above average for this type of venue and was pleasant and conversational in the Parlor Car when he was not “on duty.” Although the liquor selection was not all-inclusive, there was no economizing in what was offered, after all, they served my brand of Scotch. The food was very good and served hot. NOW, I have seen the Australian Outback and can remove sleeping on a train from my bucket list, well, at least during the second night when there was some actual sleeping accomplished.
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