The INDIAN PACIFIC: Australia's Greatest Train - Sydney to Perth | Full Trip Video

hello and welcome to the town of cook in the middle of the Nullarbor plain in Australia permanent population here is just four and it's an intermediate stop on Australia's greatest train journey the Indian Pacific come and join me and enjoy the video the Indian Pacific is an epic Ford a train trip across Australia covering four thousand three hundred and fifty two kilometers in all it's a luxury cruise train between Sydney and Perth taking in intermediates doctor excursions and traversing that deadly hot nullabor plane in this video I'll be going westbound starting in Sydney Australia's largest city our journey will take us to the most remote parts of this unique country so it seems fitting to begin the journey here in Sydney a cradle of Australian culture just across from Bellmore Park lies Sydney Central Station railways have been in Sydney since 1855 although this excellent building dates from 1906 and was the first station to truly bring the railway to Sydney centre there are 25 platforms here serving anything from local commuter trains to the New South Wales train link which uses xpt trains like this if they look familiar to us Brits it's because they are they're modified high-speed trains you'd find in Britain elsewhere in the station are several rolls of Honor like this relating to the First World War reminding us of the sacrifices made by Australians in what was for them a war very far away from home there are only three passenger trains in the world which cover a longer distance in the Indian Pacific it is one of the world's most remarkable railway journeys so it's a bit strange to see it advertised with no fanfare alongside mundane commuter trains here baggage check-in takes place a couple of hours before departure you should check in big suitcases and take only a small cabin bag on board with what you need for the trip this G class locomotive has just hauled half of our train in and will provide some additional traction for the first day of our trip which includes a lengthy climb up into the Blue Mountains in all there are 29 carriages comprising our Indian Pacific on this trip and it's such a lengthy train that half of the carriages need to be boarded from a separate platform as more passengers gather our resident train musician provides the backdrop to a small pre-departure party on the platform hosted by the wonderful train staff [Music] as well as the passenger cars there are several baggage cars to some power vans and crew quarters so the train is broken up into sections you can in theory walk through the whole train but different identical portions are often reserved by different tour groups so don't expect to take a 2090 carriage stroll at any point there are two main classes of service on the Indian Pacific Gold is the lower of the two classes and it's what I'll be traveling in but is still splendid luxury platinum is super luxury with elevated drinks more stylish suites and an even better appointed lounge car half an hour before departure some action our helper locomotive is shunted to the front of the train in preparation for departure remember the train is split over two platforms the first portion departs with passengers on board and will then reverse onto our portion and then once everyone's on board the full length train can finally depart as a single concept [Music] [Music] yeah that's me so just into the left if you want to take a few room or something thank you very much once on board I find my way to my room which will be my home for the next three nights suddenly and with little fanfare we gradually ease our way out of Sydney Central and cover the first of 4352 rail kilometers to Perth on the far side of Australia we'll do a room tour a little later but first things first the coffee station this is at the end of each carriage and contains unlimited hot drinks and an instant dispensed boiling water fountain [Music] next a look at the lounge car each Outback explorer lounge is named for well a different Outback explorer ours is named for Edward John Eyre who tried to reach unsuccessfully the center of Australia and cross the unforgiving nullarbor plain which we'll be doing in luxury later in the trip all of the fun happens in the lounge it's where the bar is and where the people are and it's a convivial place to wile away the hours there's also some great merchandise on sale if that's your sort of thing each portion of the Train has a queen Adelaide dining car named after the consort of King William the fourth who was on the throne when South Australia was settled in 1836 all the on train meals are served here and all fairs are fully inclusive of all drinks and food in both the bar and restaurant so let's take a look at the actual room these rooms are designed to sleep two people in comfort although I was traveling alone the bed's fold down from behind the seats although you won't need to learn how elegant turndown service is given every night and your room will be converted back in the morning to the bedding is excellent and is stored during the day at the top of the cabin the second bed is a bunk bed and folds down from near the roof all rooms are ensuite with shower evening Gold Class and the bathroom has kept sparkling by the staff who treat the rooms as they would have five-star hotel room good toiletries are provided although there's no harm in bringing your own and there's also a shower which provides excellent water pressure considering the limitations of being on the train towels are provided and changed daily and they're stored in a waterproof closet there's a radio console to providing a modest selection of music a vanity mirror and most importantly charge points for your electronic devices each room also has a nightlight setting which comes in very handy and there's also a small wardrobe to hang your clothes remember you should check in big suitcases and only bring on board but you'll need for the trip there's an internal lock on the door no external one is really necessary on a sealed luxury train and finally there's an adjustable blind which comes in very useful in the dead centre of Australia where the Sun and heat can be oppressive especially during mid summer which is when I was traveling shortly after leaving Sydney we find ourselves in the climb up to the Blue Mountains a world heritage site there's an off train excursion here when traveling from Perth but not from Sydney excursions and stops vary slightly depending on the direction of travel and the season too so do check the website [Music] eventually we reach the summit in the mid evening which gives us a brief spectacular view over the plain below meals on the Indian Pacific aren't done in sittings and for some meals you'll need to book is sitting in advance when going to dinner pop the make up room sign on the door and when you return the attendant will have provided turndown service food on this train is exquisite without exception each meal features locally inspired ingredients suitable to the region the train is passing through at the time and there is excellent choice - there's a bit of a perception in Britain at the height of Australian food culture is a barbecue but nothing could be further from the truth my first meal was a terrific kangaroo loin for starter followed by a steak cooked rare and the most delicate cherry panna cotta outside my window there are some reminders of Australia's railway heritage near Lithgow and at Waller around we see the old Power Station now closed [Music] Australia's energy policy is a source of lively political debate but as from my energy policy on this train it was to try as much of the excellent food as I could that really is nothing so civilized as sharing a dining car with strangers and sharing an excellent meal with some great stories [Music] [Music] [Music] as the evening wore on dusk fell and I noted we had an early start the following day for Broken Hill and off train excursion to a fascinating mining town time for an early night and I was glad to see the bed made with a little chocolate just in case you're wondering these beds are a bit over six feet long and are very very comfortable it's early morning and the first order of business is coffee as we approach Broken Hill our stop happens before breakfast which is merciful as will be saved the scorching heat in store for this part of the outback later in the day this is a remote place those satellite dishes there actually supply the region's broadband as there's no fiber or wireless here good morning so the time is just after 6:00 a.m. and we're approaching Broken Hill in New South Wales which is an old mining town so today's first off train excursion for me is to the trades Hall and the miners memorial which should be really interesting let's go and check it out other excursions available on my trip were a trip to the eclectic Pro Hearts gallery what we'll walk around the living desert sculpture park but I wanted to know more about what made this remote town exist in the first place its industry on route a reminder of the mining heritage of this town can be found in the street names and we passed the small Railway Museum at the original sulfide Street Station we're handed little novelty trade union badges because our first stop was at the trades Hall a super building which took seven years to construct finally opening in 1905 well good morning ladies and gentlemen and welcome the Malcolm - Lawrence Association played for the for tectum I nominate no name when you stay united and will you know whatever it tight until we seal upstairs in this very building and sign an agreement for our era like our work might Fraulein fortunately after a rip-roaring reenactment of a call to industrial action by the local actors there's lemonade and biscuits for everyone and time to explore many unions had their business here as can be seen from the male pigeon holes everything from mining to engineers to locomotive drivers and everything in between the trades Hall is a magnificent building constructed entirely from the pooled resources of ordinary working American Hill was a 100 pairs affair of union activity socialism and industrial action which has been well remembered in the locality the unions here champion the 35 hour working week and help defeat conscription in Australia for World War one this notwithstanding another War Memorial can be found here for those men who did make the choice all Australian men who fought in the war were volunteers and on a per capita basis Australia suffered the heaviest losses of any allied nation in this conflict the miners memorial looms over the town that's our next stop and on our way a quick glimpse of the Palace Hotel which featured heavily in the film Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the desert a defining piece of pop culture about Australia's queer scene atop the hill it's clear that the Indian Pacific train dominates the view of the town a brilliant flash of silver resting in the Rising Sun this still mining here at Broken Hill the dust for which can be a problem so the spoiled tips are treated with a green suppressant to stop the dust blowing across the town and coating everything after the light-hearted reenactment of the trades halt the dangerous reality of mining life and the reality of unionized labor comes to the fore at the - memorial nearly 900 deaths are recorded here many of which are gruesome it's no wonder therefore that the unions fought hard for safer working practices and as the years wear on the lists of deaths thin out but never quite stop back at the train a local entrepreneur is selling chocolates but it's a bit early for that for me and we're back on board and having breakfast in no time our next stop will be in several hours time the beautiful city of Adelaide and a trip to hand off a splendid village of German heritage [Music] [Music] on roots we passed Peterborough which has retained some of its railway heritage as well as the old roundhouse [Music] [Music] [Music] after a splendid grape pickers lunch as branded by the train crew we make a short stop at two wells to allow passengers during the Barossa wine valley tour to alight then after passing the RAAF base at edinburgh its directly to the parklands terminal at adelaide I am off to handoff but an excursion to the South Australian Museum as possible to that sort of thing during the winter mclaren vale wine tours are also possible [Music] [Music] Adelaide is a welcoming green oasis after a morning traversing the outback the local area is worth exploring too now our bus takes the 30 minutes drive into the cool Adelaide Hills handoff is eight tourism hotspot these days but when it was settled by German immigrants in 1838 it was a farming community the German influence hasn't ever worn off with some lovely timber frame buildings and German cuisine available pretty much everywhere you look our tour took us to a private tasting event in a local chocolate shop which is all well and good but don't spoil your dinner during the first world war Han Dolph's name was changed by law to ambleside a very English name from one of our late district towns it became hahndorf again in 1935 but a few remnants of that episode of history remain our meal tonight is here in hahndorf which sits in the middle of South Australia's epicurean way so I've got about an hour to myself here in hahndorf and it's given me a little bit of time to reflect on the journey so far the whole point of taking the train is to experience things that I couldn't otherwise do if I'd flown across the country and this journey from Sydney to Perth it's really bringing me into contact with different points of Australian culture but it just would never experience otherwise and that for me is one of the really big selling points of the Indian Pacific we're hosting tonight by the house restaurant which serves up traditional German food with more than a dash of culture to [Music] it's dark by the time we arrive back at the train and the beds are made up most of us in little worse for wear after a good meal and more than a few drinks so we just thought announcement that the train is now traveling over the longest stretch of straight and level track anywhere in the world this is the knowable plane and when you look outside you'll see exactly why it's possible to build such a long straight line is nearly 500 kilometers pretty much nothing incredibly flat and featureless remarkable the Nullarbor plain may be featureless but its beauty lies in its sheer scale geography defines people more than we think the vastness and sheer harshness of the Outback are deeply ingrained in Australian folklore whether that's post European settlement or further back with Aboriginal cultures nearly all Australians live near the coast and a journey across the centre feels like a sort of Twilight Zone if such a zone could have insane scorching heat l5 this is cook population just for it's basically a ghost town now having been originally founded in 1917 as an intermediate town supplying and maintaining the railway now it's the other way around the town relies on water and supplies from passing trains this humorous mural relates to the local bush hospital which suffered from a lack of patients more than anything else there's a shortstop here which gives us the opportunity to stretch our legs I was invited by the train manager to accompany him in watching the trains walk forward with everyone else on board a slightly unnerving feeling but the external footage was worth it [Music] [Music] [Music] your shoes after spending less than an hour in the lethally inhospitable Outback Sun it was back to the sublime a terrific kangaroo curry for lunch washed down with cider and ice cream it's good to reflect on the Indian Pacific as a triumph of human achievement in managing by the nature providing reliable luxury and terrific comfort across one of the world's most inhospitable landscapes the journey is pockmarked with pipeline markers with run parallel to the railway and it's so remote here that even the tiniest settlement tends to have a bush airfield here are some satellite images of the ones at Reid and Hughes and here's an unidentified one I saw from the Train I wonder how often someone needs to use them [Music] my personal highlight of the trip is coming up as the Sun begins to set dinner tonight will be served by the side of a train at war linner another tiny Outback settlement there's a small wine minor role in ER but very little else close by is wall in a sheep station Australia's largest sheep farm which covers a vast area over ten thousand square kilometers which is about half the size of the country of Wales here they graze about sixty thousand sheep so we have just arrived in a role in er Western Australia according to the train manager it is a 37 degrees outside at the moment so we're waiting for about 20 minutes for things to be set up outside and then we're gonna have a lovely meal outside on the tables in the past this was another town supporting the railway and about 50 people lived here now there's just a single family here at Roulin permanently and a dog who seems rather unruffled by the train's arrival during this stop and before dinner was served I was invited and escorted by the crew to visit the locomotive please don't walk on railway tracks or trying to access locomotives unless you have permission and the right protective gear well yours might wanna go lovely I tell you what the air conditioning here is great this freight train is one mile long and stops here briefly as part of its schedule now on to dinner which is served from barbecues on to communal tables where the drinks flow and the music and fun lasts well into the darkness [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] after all that fund in the boiling heat a shower and a sense of real sadness that tomorrow our journey ends in Perth [Music] this is Western Australia and gradually the Outback fades to Bush which fades eventually to manage farmland this is the home stretch outside the window it's possible to see the goldfields water pipeline which is over a hundred years old and takes fresh drinking water from Perth inland to the gold fields that help sustain the economy of Western Australia after a last lunch on board I noticed the track is now jewel gage this is to accommodate that narrow gauge Transperth trains which run local services in the area behind me the suburbs of Perth are rolling past as we make our way slowly into the East Perth terminal the Indian Pacific still have terminate there in about ten minutes time and it's gonna be on time as well all those thousands of kilometers later four days and three nights after leaving Sydney it has been a wonderful once-in-a-lifetime trip and a fantastic experience to see the Australian outback in all its glory I really hope that you've enjoyed this journey I won't subscribe for more videos just like this one but until next time see you around it is a big one thanks very much Cheers I knew bye-bye [Music] [Music]

Channel: Wingin’ It! Paul Lucas

Views: 2,210,488

Rating: 4.8887615 out of 5

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Id: _r1-M5lnSyo

Length: 37min 31sec (2251 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 28 2020