Australia's Epic Train Journeys
AUSTRALIA BY TRAIN
The Indian Pacific
It takes around five hours to fly from Perth to Sydney, which gives you an idea of how mammoth the train journey is between the two cities. The Indian Pacific is a true cross-continental epic, and if you’re going to take on the whole route in one swoop, it’s going to take around 65 hours of your life. That may seem like a hard slog, but there’s no other journey that will give you such a true, dizzying scale of Australia’s vast interior. Much of the route from Perth to Adelaide is across the intimidating Nullarbor Plain, where the changes in the barrenness are almost imperceptible. The world’s longest stretch of straight railway line – all 478 kilometres of it – is in this section. Perhaps the most enriching phase of the journey comes towards the end, however. Waking up on the last day as the train trundles across the spectacular ridges of the Blue Mountains is genuinely special.
The major stops on the route are Kalgoorlie, Adelaide and Broken Hill.
The Ghan
The Ghan – named after Afghan cameleers who used to plough a similar route - tackles Australia’s great deserts in the other direction. Running from Adelaide to Darwin via Alice Springs and Katherine, the train takes 48 hours to cross Australia from south to north. The track was only extended up from Alice Springs to Darwin in 2004, and now the Ghan journey clocks in at 2,979 kilometres. The first leg is a mammoth slog from Adelaide to Alice, but it’s timed so that the best parts of the desert scenery – the rugged Flinders Ranges and the vast plains of the South Australian outback – are traversed during the daylight hours.
The Spirit of the Outback
There are really two sections to Queensland’s iconic train journey, with the first leg heading parallel to the coast from Brisbane to Rockhampton before the second leg ploughs into the Queensland outback. Straight through, the journey takes 24 hours. The train covers 1,325 kilometres, finishing in Longreach, which is arguably Australia’s most fun-packed outback town. It’s home to the Australian Stockman’s Hall of Fame, the Qantas Founders Museum and the Outback Heritage Centre.
Unlike the Indian Pacific and Ghan, there aren’t lengthy stops built in with windows for side-tours, so if you want to get off and explore, you’ll have to wait a few days for the next train.