Alison Stewart finds luxuries and quirks on a train journey between Sydney and Adelaide.
Mark Twain wrote about the folly that spawned Australia's different rail gauges, calling it, somewhat unkindly, "a paralysis of intellect". We discover that a rather lovable quirkiness still exists on our Sydney to Adelaide Indian Pacific journey.
But as we are fully subscribed to writer Khaled Hosseini's mantra of "Life is a train, get on board", who cares as to the whereabouts of our luggage after a check-in glitch, that our en suite toilet is spraying like a tom cat, that there's a tsunami of elderly fun-seekers making for the most popular 6pm dinner sitting, and that our compartment will be shanghaied for servicing 30 minutes before our destination, as "Adelaide staff don't make beds".
No worries. We're ensconced in our top-of-the range platinum compartment sipping complimentary DiGiorgio sparkling pinot chardonnay and nibbling cheese as we slide out of Central Station. In comfort, we anticipate what's ahead. We're on a short break - 24 hours on the train, which is the time it takes to traverse the 1693 kilometres from Sydney to Adelaide, then a night in that city to savour its food and wine.
We've experienced a fair few trains, so it's interesting to compare an Australian luxury train with what's on offer elsewhere. What we find is what we've already discovered on an earlier Ghan trip - the Indian Pacific is a uniquely Australian experience. Full-on egalitarian, you might say.
Not for this Aussie institution the formal, shoe-shining, butler-pampering, hot-towel-wielding elitism of other luxury world trains (though the fine quality of the Indian Pacific's food and wine is certainly comparable).
Some may grumble that it's not sophisticated enough, but don't people travel to experience the essence of a country? And on the Indian Pacific, you experience it two ways - through landscape and people. There's nothing like a train journey to give a sense of Australia's vastness.
We marvel first at the sprawl of Sydney, but a few hours later, after negotiating the late golden light of the Blue Mountains, something strange happens. We begin to realise that Sydney is rather small - tiny, in fact. What's really big is Australia itself. Hour after hour, we carve through vast beige and green emptiness, yet the map shows we've barely left the east coast.
Our train hosts the archetypal mature Australian - informal, down-to-earth, jovial. The train staff are equally informal, though you wonder sometimes if you're an inmate of a mobile retirement village with the staff supervising and serving.
An unruly queue is wont to form for the Queen Adelaide dining car, the subtle wielding of walking sticks a determined art. Platinum service (there's also gold and red) includes a handy limo transfer from home to the station.
There are two platinum carriages (of 28) with pleasant double or twin compartments, picture windows, olive suede seats, teal carpets embossed with discreet boomerangs, comfortable beds, Byron Bay "cookies", chocolates, well-equipped en suite - and in our case, the offending tom-cat toilet.
There are five gold-service carriages to navigate before the lounge and charming Queen Adelaide dining car with its embossed glass partitions, comfortable seats, competent, no-nonsense service. (It's just l"red or white wine" - no wine list offered, though we do eventually locate one.)
Meals include pleasing offerings such as Hervey Bay scallop ravioli, Murray Riverine lamb shank, Petuna ocean trout, free-range grain-fed duck breast, hazelnut croquant and chocolate marquise tart, passionfruit curd and orange cake. We're up with the sun to enjoy our Broken Hill whistlestop tour of the remote mining city.
"Enjoy" might be too strong a word. The tour is at breakneck speed, an elderly lady causes tour-bus havoc when she loses herself in the Miners' Memorial shop, and our guide may not be having his best day, whacking his head three times on the bus TV. But we survive and are soon back on the train heading towards Port Pirie, thence Adelaide, enjoying a breakfast of poached eggs as sheep graze amid the saltbush, brumbies race the train, and Australia's quintessential grey-green plains stretch into forever.
Indian Pacific's platinum service from Sydney to Adelaide includes private transfer to and from the terminal, Broken Hill excursion, dining and refreshments, and costs $1399 a person. See greatsouthernrail.com.au. Crowne Plaza Adelaide has double rooms from $162. See crowneplaza.com.
The writer was a guest of Great Southern Rail.
