{"id":842828,"date":"2025-04-22T16:11:56","date_gmt":"2025-04-22T21:11:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/22\/heard-about-the-ghan-australias-famous-train-try-the-indian-pacific-instead\/"},"modified":"2025-04-22T16:11:56","modified_gmt":"2025-04-22T21:11:56","slug":"heard-about-the-ghan-australias-famous-train-try-the-indian-pacific-instead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/22\/heard-about-the-ghan-australias-famous-train-try-the-indian-pacific-instead\/","title":{"rendered":"Heard about The Ghan, Australia’s famous train? Try The Indian Pacific instead"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This article was produced by National Geographic Traveller <\/i>(UK).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Three hours: that\u2019s how long it takes Shelita Buffet to get ready. There are false eyelashes to glue and cheekbones to contour; there\u2019s a neon-bright wig to preen and a sequined pink leotard to tug on \u2014 and then there\u2019s the generous application of glitter to beard. Looking this good takes time. The first honeyed rays of dawn have only just begun to wash into the mining town of Broken Hill and Shelita is standing on the station platform in a pair of blocky white heels, watching as I step off the train.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d boarded in Sydney the day before, leaving behind the skyscrapers and the Opera House\u2019s monumental clutch of alabaster shells to make tracks on a journey of continental proportions, rattling east to west across the bottom of Australia aboard the Indian Pacific. It\u2019s a journey of 2,704 miles in all from Sydney to Perth, roughly equivalent to travelling from London to Moscow and halfway back over the course of three days. Around the midway point we\u2019ll pass through the Nullarbor Plain \u2014 a landscape so arid it was once described by Victorian explorer Edward John Eyre as \u201cthe sort of place one gets into in bad dreams\u201d. Broken Hill is one of the stops en route, a remote town 300 miles northeast of Adelaide \u2014 in what undoubtedly qualifies as the middle of nowhere.<\/p>\n

Many might assume that this outback outpost may not be the most progressive place, given the traditional reputation that back-of-beyond country towns generally have. But drag queens like Shelita have long reigned here. At least, they have since the 1990s, when original royalty Mitzi, Bernadette and Felicia first rolled in on their clapped-out bus, en route through the outback to perform in Alice Springs. Shelita is a local and tells me she remembers when the cult classic Australian film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert came out. She was seven, and many of her parents\u2019 friends appeared in it as extras. \u201cAt that time, I had no idea what a drag queen even was,\u201d she says, as we embark on a tour of the town. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t until my teenage years that I realised what the movie was about.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Palace Hotel in Broken Hill featured in the classic 1994 film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert<\/i>.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Photograph by Irjaliina Paavonpera<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

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Local drag queen Shelita Buffet has many friends and family members who appeared as extras in the queer cult classic film.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Photograph by Irjaliina Paavonpera<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Silver was discovered nearby in 1885, and many of the road names in Broken Hill now take their inspiration from the elements: there\u2019s Cobalt Street, Crystal Lane, Sulphide Street. As we reach Argent Street\u2019s broad avenue, the only sign of life this early in the morning comes from a tree dotted with squawking, white tufts \u2014 cockatoos. We pause opposite The Palace Hotel, where an ornate balcony wraps around the second of its three floors in a melange of heritage iron lacework worthy of an Old West saloon.<\/p>\n

Built originally as a \u2018coffee palace\u2019 in 1889 for the then-princely sum of \u00a312,190, to provide a teetotal alternative to the alcohol-fuelled hotels, it\u2019s now known for its collection of maximalist 1980s-era murals that featured heavily in the film \u2014 among them an unconvincing reproduction of Botticelli\u2019s Birth of Venus. \u201cIt\u2019s an iconic building as the home of Priscilla,\u201d Shelita says, placing one manicured hand on her hip, as we take it in from the shade of a shop\u2019s domed veranda, the sun now beginning to heat the\u00a0dry air.<\/p>\n

At the town\u2019s peak in 1915, around 35,000 people lived in Broken Hill. Today, it\u2019s a rather sleepier place: old train carriages gently decay in station yards; a lone man in overalls thumbs a newspaper on a terrace; at the end of a broad, straight boulevard, a slag heap from ongoing mining looms ever taller. Back in the day, trains like the Silver City Comet were a lifeline through the surrounding wilderness to Sydney to the east. It went by another moniker: the Rattler, named for its party trick of rattling tea out of cups as it traversed the uneven terrain.<\/p>\n

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The Queen Adelaide dining car juxtaposes its modern service with retro design.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Photograph by Irjaliina Paavonpera (Top)<\/span> (Left)<\/span> and Photograph by Irjaliina Paavonpera (Bottom)<\/span> (Right)<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

I\u2019m travelling in comparatively more comfort. Back at the station, I leave Shelita and climb on board the Indian Pacific in time for a late breakfast. As the train heaves off from Broken Hill, an orchestra of squeaks, rattles and creaks starts up, the soundtrack of the carriages that strain to follow the same path they have for the past 50 years. I head to the Queen Adelaide dining car, which appears likewise much as it always has, time capsule-like in its undying commitment to all things retro: the browns and golds, the white tablecloths, the gilded ceiling panels and etched glass booth dividers framed by faux-Grecian columns. Breakfast today is a mix of both refined and unrefined Australian dining: creamy scrambled eggs with hot smoked trout, and a side of toast with Vegemite.<\/p>\n

Slowly, freight carriages and pylons pass beyond the windows to reveal a broad, flat plain of blue-green saltbush, broken up by dry creeks and gaping maws of that characteristic red earth. Every so often, a kangaroo raises its smooth head to watch our locomotive interloper, or an emu sprints on gangly legs in the direction of the great, flat horizon. Out here in the Australian bush, the only measure of time\u2019s passing comes from the steady arc of the sun. Clouds waft overhead, the dust settles as the breeze softens, and the world seems to hold its breath.<\/p>\n

The big empty<\/h2>\n

Traversing the breadth of Australia by train is a considerable feat of engineering. Back in the 20th century, around the time of the Rattler, the beginnings of a cross-country railway did exist, but it was missing a central belt between Kalgoorlie and Port Augusta, spanning almost 1,243 miles. Western Australia was instead reached via treacherous sea voyages across the Great Australian Bight. Why this was deemed preferable is unsurprising \u2014 consider the technology, the sheer grit and determination, required to cross the breadth of a continent generally characterised by the inhospitality of its landscape.<\/p>\n

With the gold fields of Western Australia too isolated in a newly federated country, the first tracks of what would become the Trans-Australian Railway were laid in 1912 \u2014\u00a0using picks, shovels, carthorses and camels. Five years, 2.5 million hardwood sleepers and 140,000 tonnes of rail later, it was done. In 1969, the route was rebuilt and extended from Sydney to Perth, making it possible to ride a train 62 hours between the Pacific and the Indian Ocean for the first time. And the first passenger train to make the full crossing? The\u00a0Indian Pacific.<\/p>\n

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Aboard the Indian Pacific, passengers get front row seats for magnificent sunsets on the Nullarbor Plain.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Photograph by Irjaliina Paavonpera<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

That evening, I crank open the blinds in my cabin to better watch the stars, so bright and clear in the inky darkness that they\u2019re more like beacons than pinpricks. Some time during the night, we cross into the Nullarbor, the place from John Edward Eyre\u2019s nightmares.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s here that the Indian Pacific quietens, its familiar clanking rhythms fading to a low, continual rumble. Where the route to Broken Hill had been thunderous, rattling skeletons as much as it once did teacups, the passage west feels calm and straight, almost like we\u2019ve left all trace of land behind and set sail on the calmest lake. At some far-flung point in history, this vast expanse of limestone bedrock was an ancient seabed, which rose from the waves over the millennia at this near-southernmost edge of the world. There are few trees on the Nullarbor because the soil is a calcium-rich loam, derived mainly from unfathomable quantities of seashells.<\/p>\n

The following morning, the magic of the Nullarbor unfolds beyond the window. I watch, transfixed, from my narrow bunk \u2014 it\u2019s monotonous yet somehow utterly entertaining. Only sporadic, low-lying pockets of stunted eucalypts, saltbush and wild acacia break up the great expanse of perfectly flat, Lucozade-red earth, which unfurls in seemingly limitless quantities in every direction, beyond every window. Few places on Earth are so featureless, few horizons so unbroken for so long. It\u2019s a view that tugs at your feet and suggests you take a long walk. But set off here, and trouble surely follows; daytime temperatures can reach 50C, the plains go on for around 124,000 sq miles, and there\u2019s a reason why its Aboriginal name is \u2018Oondiri\u2019, or \u2018the waterless\u2019. Australia is the sixth-largest country in the world, about 30 times the size of the UK, and on this mighty plateau you finally gauge a sense of its mammoth scale. This, the longest straight stretch of train track in the world, is even identifiable from space.<\/p>\n

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The stripped landscape of the Nullarbor invites for self-reflection and slowing down.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Photograph by Irjaliina Paavonpera<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Edward John Eyre was the first European to cross the Nullarbor on foot in 1840-41. He walked in the footsteps of three Aboriginal guides, eating kangaroos and sucking water from the roots of gumtrees to survive. Partway across they also ate their horses, and not long after that two of the guides mutinied \u2014 the year-long crossing only succeeding thanks to supplies donated from a passing French whaling vessel. Our crossing will take just over a day, with the contemporary luxuries of live music, air conditioning and an open bar \u2014 although in the Queen Adelaide dining car, kangaroo is still on the menu.<\/p>\n

In the lounge car, the train\u2019s equivalent of a living room one carriage along from the restaurant, proximity fosters conversation and friendships forge easily. Sitting on one of the pink banquettes facing each other across the narrow aisle, a tall man wearing a backwards cap offers the passenger next to him a crisp. \u201cDon\u2019t mind if I do!\u201d, says a passing septuagenarian, flashing a grin as he takes one. It\u2019s after lunchtime, and the carriage\u2019s usual soundtrack of light jazz and clinking wine glasses is punctuated with shouts of \u201cIndiana!\u201d and \u201cNorth Dakota!\u201d as a group makes a game of trying to name the 50 US states from memory. By evening, they\u2019ll switch to telling ghost stories.<\/p>\n

On the Nullarbor, the art of doing nothing becomes an Olympic sport. For there\u2019s virtually nothing here \u2014 its name is from the Latin nullus arbor, meaning \u2018no trees\u2019. The Groundhog Day nature of the landscape means the world narrows to just 27 carriages. At first, it makes you feel nervous \u2014 what will you do? \u2014 but then your thoughts slow and you remember you like reading. You strike up conversations with strangers in the hallway, barely wide enough for one, grinning sheepishly and scuttling into your cabin like a crab evading the tide whenever another passenger needs to pass. Or you lie back on your bunk and watch all that nothing roll by.<\/p>\n

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The township of Cook was established in 1917 as a service centre for the transcontinental railway, with a school, hospital, general store and golf course.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Photograph by Irjaliina Paavonpera<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

The ghost of the Nullarbor<\/h2>\n

There\u2019s a screech as the train slows, red earth still rolling beyond one bank of windows, a grove of eucalypts now visible through the other. Once it stops, we step out into the dust one by one, our boots crunching on a fine layer of terracotta scree. It could be Mars \u2014 not least for its sense of utmost remoteness. We\u2019re still on the Nullarbor, as we have been for more than 24 hours now, around 620 miles from Adelaide but still some 1,000 from Perth. To my right, beyond the locomotive, the tracks plough on before surrendering to the horizon. Ahead, a jumble of low-lying houses is just visible through the trees.<\/p>\n

The township of Cook was established in 1917 as a service centre for the transcontinental railway, with a school, hospital, general store and golf course. Around 300 people lived here at its height, with the weekly \u2018Tea and Sugar\u2019 train supplying the families with sheep, groceries, haircuts \u2014\u00a0even a present-wielding Santa at Christmas. But by 1997, when the Australian National Railway was sold, it was decided that the town was only needed as a watering and refuelling station \u2014 and, almost overnight, it all closed. Cook became a near-ghost town. There are now no permanent residents, though a handful of railway workers endure.<\/p>\n

I walk towards the houses, the train\u2019s riveted stainless-steel carriages an incongruous procession of silver bullets in an otherwise elemental landscape. I pass a signpost pointing to Sydney, Perth and Souvenirs \u2014 though the word \u2018Souvenirs\u2019 has been scratched out. A flaccid windsock briefly stirs as a breeze whispers across the plain. Electricity wires undulate overhead; the only sound, beyond the low rumble of our refuelling train and the crunching of my boots, is the lonely call of a little black-and-white bird perched on one of the pylons.<\/p>\n

Ahead, town caretaker Brady Bennett is leaning against a low fence in a fluorescent orange jacket, attempting to flatten his cowlicked silver hair with such fervour that I wonder when he last had a visitor. \u201cG\u2019day!\u201d he calls over to me with a thick Australian accent, his eyes concealed behind dark glasses, his skin blushing pink from the sun. \u201cI\u2019m Brady, like the Bunch.\u201d<\/p>\n

He tells me he used to work in mining but now cleans the train drivers\u2019 quarters, usually remaining here for three weeks \u2014 sometimes up to six \u2014 before getting a week off. I ask him if it ever gets boring at the heart of the Nullarbor. \u201cWaking up every morning like this? How\u2019s that boring?\u201d he says, his tone incredulous. \u201cI like the quiet \u2014 when I knock off, I go back to my house to have a couple of tinnies and listen to my records, do a bit of gardening.\u201d He points to his house on the end of the row, where spiky succulents emerge from the gravel. On a rusted barrel, he\u2019s lined up a row of toy cars with the precision of a drill sergeant.<\/p>\n

\u201cI live in Adelaide, but I hate city life really. The traffic jams, everything else. Here there\u2019s no traffic, no roundabouts, no crime,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019ve got a couple of friends here. You sort of keep to yourself but sometimes you might go and have a drink or two with \u2019em, sometimes we\u2019ll have a fire out front and have a yarn. It really is the simple life.\u201d He pauses thoughtfully, before adding: \u201cBut if I want a hamburger, it\u2019s 140Ks that way.\u201d He points back the way I\u2019ve come along the tracks.<\/p>\n

Brady directs me along the path to the remnants of the school, past a decaying basketball court, the hoops\u2019 nets a tangle of forlorn strings. When I find it, decades spent beneath the Nullarbor sun have begun to erase all evidence: windowpanes peel, machinery rusts orange and an outbuilding classroom slowly turns to splinters, the bleached dingo painted on one side now a ghostly apparition in a field of desert flowers.<\/p>\n

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Passengers can spot emus, kangaroos and other curiosities straight from their seat.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Photograph by Irjaliina Paavonpera<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

The next morning on the train, I wake to something I\u2019ve not properly seen for days, and Brady hasn\u2019t seen for weeks: water. So much of it that it froths and churns in the sunrise\u2019s amber light, threatening to spill over the rocky banks and surge into the forested hills that rise steeply on either side. The view through the windows is jarringly bucolic, the red earth of the Nullarbor traded overnight via scenic sleight of hand for green, endless green. The Avon River washes far below and runs parallel to the train tracks; in the far distance, trees dot emerald hummocks like broccoli florets.<\/p>\n

After a few hours, the Avon meets the Swan, the mighty watercourse that begins north east of Perth and coils right through the heart of the Western Australian capital before washing out to sea. As we approach the city, humanity appears in greater and greater concentrations: coffee-drinking suburbanites drive to work; people cycle between low bungalows; and workers tend to rows of manicured grapevines. And then I see them: skyscrapers emerging from the haze on the distant blue horizon.<\/p>\n

Over three days, we\u2019ve crossed the breadth of Australia from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean, from Sydney to this westernmost terminus, via a landscape so empty that ours were the only footprints for thousands of miles. And now, with a jolt, we\u2019re about to rejoin society.<\/p>\n

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Published in the April 2025 issue of National Geographic Traveller<\/i> (UK).<\/p>\n

To subscribe to\u00a0National Geographic Traveller<\/i>\u00a0(UK) magazine click here<\/a>. (Available in select countries only).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Georgia Stephens
Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article was produced by National Geographic Traveller (UK). Three hours: that\u2019s how long it takes Shelita Buffet to get ready. There are false eyelashes to glue and cheekbones to contour; there\u2019s a neon-bright wig to preen and a sequined pink leotard to tug on \u2014 and then there\u2019s the generous application of glitter to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":842829,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28635,4286],"tags":[17296,5715],"class_list":{"0":"post-842828","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australias","8":"category-heard","9":"tag-australias","10":"tag-heard"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=842828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/842829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=842828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=842828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=842828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}