The Indian Pacific Railroad

Last Wednesday we started our day with breakfast at the Circular Quay: possibly the last time that we will see the Sydney Harbor Bridge and the Sydney Opera House standing on the quay. We were anxious to begin the next phase of our journey. We have never traveled by train let alone slept on a train before. We checked in at the Sydney Central Station and were invited to join our fellow passengers for a reception prior to boarding the train. The Indian Pacific reserved a reception room that accommodated all 192 passengers. They provided beverages and sandwiches for the group. At 3:00 pm the “All Aboard” announcement was made and 192 mostly senior citizens casually walked to their carriage.

The Indian Pacific is a weekly tourism passenger service that is named after the two oceans it travels between. Our trip will take us from Sydney on the shore of the Pacific Ocean, to Perth, on the shore of the Indian Ocean. It is one of the few truly transcontinental trains in the world. The train has been rated as one of the great rail journeys of the world. Its route includes the world’s longest straight stretch of railway track of 297 miles and stretches from the Blue Mountains across to the treeless Nullarbor Plain. The entire journey will take 4 days and 3 nights and we’ll travel a total of 2,704 miles. By comparison the distance between New York City and San Francisco is 2,901 miles!

Our train has 26 carriages and is about 1,200 feet long. It’s so long that they have to split the train into 2 segments and load at 2 different platforms. Once everyone is on board the first half of the train pulls out, is switched to the track for the other platform and backs up to the second half of the train where the two sections are coupled together. There are three levels of service on the train: Platinum, Premium Gold, and Gold. We are fortunate because our carriage is next to the lounge car followed by the dining car. We relaxed in the lounge car as we departed Sydney, traveled through suburban Sydney towards and through the Blue Mountains.

We enjoyed a yummy swordfish dinner with Australian wine with two other passengers. Jim chose the kangaroo appetizer and Cory wimped out and chose the cauliflower soup. After dinner we went back to our cabin. In trying to describe our accommodations the word cozy comes to mind. Once the bottom bunk is opened and the top bunk is down with the ladder in place it becomes extra cozy with very little space to move. We managed to take turns moving and Jim volunteered for the top bunk.

Just before we signed off for the day they made an announcement to turn our clocks to central Australian time which is 30 minutes behind our current time. That completely boggled us since we couldn’t find that time zone on our phones. So we guessed on the time for our alarms and missed the mark and got up 30 minutes earlier. The next morning we discovered it was Adelaide time zone. Who ever heard of a 30 minute time zone change anyway?

However even though we didn’t know what time it was the train was rocking and rolling all night long movement seemed to lull us to sleep.