Outback Patron of the Arts

In March 2018, I spent a few days in the remote Queensland town of Normanton, awaiting the weekly run of the Gulflander train.

One morning, killing time, I visited the Three Tribes art gallery, and for the first time the ferocious dogs near the old town well declined to bark at me.

Were they asleep on the job, or was I slowly becoming accepted as a local?

The front of the gallery was locked, so I walked around the back and found an open-air shed with a dozen or so Aboriginal women creating art at tables.

Shenane was the gallery manager, who I'd met briefly the day before at the town's Visitor Centre. She had a no-nonsense manner I associated with the aunts of PG Wodehouse books.

“I don’t have a staff member to run the shop at the moment,” she said, opening up the gallery for me. She explained the women were mostly making art as part of a work for the dole scheme.

“Better than doing something pointless like weeding,” I said.

It struck me as a good idea, the artists building skills and creating works to be proud of, as well as earning a commission from sales. And it provided another way for tourists to spend their dollars in the town, which was always a consideration for remote places with limited amusements.

There was an array of work on the walls, in both contemporary and traditional styles. One large portrait with a lot of black was painted by a woman who’d suffered from depression, said Shenane.

I turned over a small glazed bowl shaped like a gumleaf (see image at left). It was $3, so I decided to buy it.

Then I noticed a framed painting on the wall above the till, about 50 centimetres square, featuring brightly coloured handprints framed by dots (see image top right). It was only $30. I bought that too.

While I was encasing it in some bubble wrap Shenane had found, she ushered in a young woman. This was the artist, Stella. We had a chat about the work and how she had created its elements, and she went away beaming.

“That was her first sale,” said Shenane, dropping the aunt-like demeanour and smiling.

I rarely make impulse buys when travelling, obsessed as I am with travelling light. Now I had to work out how to get the art back to Melbourne.

The staff at Normanton's general store gave me an empty cardboard box to encase it, which I bound with a large amount of post office adhesive tape. I dispatched it to the mercies of Australia Post, feeling good about my impulsive role as patron of the arts.

I returned home safely two weeks later. So did the painting.

Three Tribes is located at 85 Landsborough Street, Normanton, Queensland. See more details at the Bynoe Arts Centre website.

Quirky Structures of Outback Queensland

Over the past week I've been travelling through western Queensland, Australia, hosted by Outback Queensland and Queensland Rail Travel.

It's been a great experience, and one I'll be writing about soon for Fairfax's Traveller section. In the meantime, let me show you some memorable buildings and other structures I've seen on the way...

1. The Tree of Knowledge in Barcaldine; under its branches, the Australian Labor Party was born in the 1890s:

2. The Australian Stockman's Hall of Fame, Longreach; this light aircraft hanging from the ceiling is an impressive exhibit:

3. This tank and windmill blade at Camden Park cattle station near Longreach make a great photographic subject; there's a touch of Mad Max about them:

4. This is the retro-themed lobby of the North Gregory Hotel in Winton. Country cool:

5. This curious structure on Carisbrooke station, near Winton, was left behind by a TV crew who filmed the French version of Survivor here:

6. Finally, here's the man himself - poet Banjo Paterson. This statue of him stands on Winton's main street, with the words of his famous song Waltzing Matilda on a curved sheet of corrugated iron behind him:

For the record, the song was first performed in 1895 just across the road, at the North Gregory Hotel.

South on The Ghan 2: Alice Springs to Adelaide

Last time I wrote about the first leg of my journey on The Ghan transcontinental train, from Darwin to Katherine. The journey continues below...

1. Interior Comforts. Time for some more shots of the train's interior, I think. Here's the Queen Adelaide dining car, followed by the Outback Explorer bar:

2. A Station Like Alice. The morning after we'd left Katherine, we arrived in Alice Springs. I'd last been here for the Alice Desert Festival (read about my experience here), but arrived by plane of course.

In the centre of Australia, this was the original terminus of The Ghan's route, which ran north from Adelaide. It wasn't until 2004 that the line was extended the additional 1500 kilometres to Darwin.

You can see a statue of one of the Afghan camel drivers who gave their name to the train here, at Alice Springs Station:

3. The Old Ghan. Although the railway linking Alice Springs and Adelaide dates from the 1920s, its route has changed over the years. Nowadays the standard gauge line runs a long way west of the original route, which was prone to flooding and other mishaps.

The original line is remembered at the National Road Transport Hall of Fame just outside Alice Springs, which incorporates the Old Ghan Train Railway Museum. Located on a stretch of track from the original rail route, the two museums hold an interesting mix of road and rail transport, including earlier Ghan rolling stock:

4. Empty Spaces. After we left Alice Springs, there were a lot of scenes like this out of my cabin window - flat empty desert with scrubby vegetation and distinctive red earth. At some point here we crossed the border into South Australia, but the scenery looked much the same:

5. Pichi Richi Diversion. About 9am Friday morning, some 66 hours after leaving Darwin, we arrived in Port Augusta. Here we left the train for an excursion on the Pichi Richi Railway, a tourist operation which runs original Ghan carriages over a section of the earlier route to the town of Quorn.

This isn't a usual side-trip for Ghan passengers. This edition of The Ghan was a special train commemorating Anzac Day, Australia and New Zealand's national war remembrance day, and supporting the Returned & Services League.

The Ghan played a huge role in transporting troops north during the dark days of World War II and the Japanese air attacks on Darwin and other northern settlements, hence the military connection. Those troops rode on the tracks which pass through Quorn, and I was told the Country Women's Association outpost near the station served a million meals to soldiers during the course of the conflict.

Here's a pic of the train in motion through the low dry hills leading to Quorn, and a shot of the engine at rest in the town:

6. Terminus. Finally, after nearly 3000 kilometres of rail and 74 hours since we left Darwin, we arrived in Adelaide, the capital of South Australia. And all without changing our watches, crossing a national border or producing a passport even once:

Disclosure time... On this trip I travelled courtesy of Great Southern Rail.

Aboard the Santa Train 2: Watson to Perth

Last week I shared the first half of my recent trip across the continent aboard the Indian Pacific train. Here are some pics from the second half of the journey...

1. Watson (08:00, 9 Dec 2011)

We pulled into this non-location, an arbitrary stopping place named after Australia's third prime minister, to find dozens of people waiting for us.

Although there's nothing at Watson other than a bit of scrub and a lone tree which is annually decked with tinsel for the train's arrival, the audience had driven in from hundreds of kilometres away, some camping overnight.

Among them were many Aboriginal people including young students, and as our resident singer Jessica Mauboy is part Aboriginal herself this was always going to be an interesting meeting.

As you can see from the photo, the pop star and her backers performed unplugged under the desert sky (spot the local person recording the scene with an iPad in the lower right - those devices get everywhere):

Here's a few of the audience and a dog, all making the best use of an old lounge chair (which Santa used later for distributing presents to the kids):

2. Cook (10:00, 9 Dec 2011)

Cook was once a town with a decent-sized population, which lived to serve the railway running through it. Nowadays the population has dwindled to just four people, one of whom runs the souvenir shop which opens when the Indian Pacific arrives to refill with water.

An American tourist kindly took this shot of me in front of the sign marking the completion of the transcontinental railway in 1917:

3. Rawlinna (16:45, 9 Dec 2011)

For the rest of the day we had views of the featureless Nullarbor Plain, an amazingly flat and treeless expanse. The train drivers might also have had a bout of white line fever (or steel rail fever) as they drove the train along the longest dead straight stretch of rail in the world - all 480km of it.

Finally we crossed the border into Western Australia and arrived at Rawlinna, another virtual ghost town which once serviced the railway. Although the station building was closed, its caretakers had remarkably managed to keep a patch of lawn growing between the building and the rails.

It was facing this lawn that Jess Mauboy performed to a small audience of stockmen in impressive hats, assisted by the Man in Red:

4. Kalgoorlie (20:30, 9 Dec 2011)

In the evening we reached the gold mining city to encounter the largest crowd yet for the singer's concerts, spread out in front of the station and across the footbridges leading over it.

One of my colleagues and I slipped away into the centre of town for a drink at one of the outback city's famous old pubs, and ended up at the Exchange Hotel.

It was a warm, humid night... in fact it was so warm, the barmaids kept taking off clothing. By the time we slipped away back to the station at 10pm, things were getting quite scanty.
 
5. Perth (09:00, 10 Dec 2011)

Finally, after a night's sleep, our three day journey came to an end as we pulled into East Perth Terminal. One more concert to catch, then it was a quick hop over the lines to the suburban train, and a finally short train journey into the city centre itself.

It had been a great journey, with fine singing, gift giving, cityscapes, fascinating desert and men in big hats. I'd recommend it to anyone.

Disclosure time... on this trip I travelled courtesy of Great Southern Rail.

Aboard the Santa Train 1: Sydney to Adelaide

Happy New Year!

Those of you with decent memories may remember me taking the Indian Pacific train from Sydney to Perth two years (and about 100 blog posts) ago.

As you may recall, each year the train's operator Great Southern Rail lays on a special Outback Christmas train carrying a pop singer and Santa Claus.

Concerts are staged along the way, raising money for the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

The 2011 call came and I was invited aboard, this time in the company of the talented singer Jessica Mauboy (though I admit I had to look up who she was - my fault, not hers).

As I wrote a lot about the journey last time, this time I thought I'd share images from stops along the way, adding some comments.

1. Sydney (15:00, 7 Dec 2011)

The Indian Pacific is so long that it can't fit a single platform at Sydney's Central Station; it's split over two, then shunted together once everyone's aboard.

A few fast facts about our edition of the train:

• From Sydney to Perth, it would cover 4,352 kilometres;
• It contained 27 carriages;
• The entire train was a vast 639 metres long.

2. Near Bathurst (20:20, 7 Dec 2011)

As we were having dinner, the sun obligingly set in memorable fashion on my side of the restaurant carriage. It's not easy to take photos through glass, but this came out quite well:

3. Bathurst (20:40, 7 Dec 2011)

 

We were an hour late into Bathurst, so these kids had been putting in extra time entertaining the crowd gathered at the station for the free concert. A few speeches quickly delivered, then Jessica Mauboy hit the stage with her backing vocalist and two guitarists. 

The pattern was the same for each concert - Ms Mauboy would sing a few of her own songs, then the kids would join her in Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas is You. In this case, with choreographed hand movements.

4. Near Broken Hill (08:30, 8 Dec 2011)

I snapped this shot of the empty Queen Adelaide restaurant carriage just before breakfast. Elegant, isn't it?

Meals were a highlight of the journey; with an interesting gang of media from across the world aboard the train, it was good to mix up the seating regularly to meet someone new.

We were supposed to stop at Broken Hill before breakfast, for another concert and a coach tour around town. Unfortunately, track works on this section of the journey had so slowed the train that we were now running very late and Silver City had to be skipped to catch up time.

However, I later heard that Jess Mauboy had made a point of getting out briefly at the station to say hello to a few fans who'd hung on in the hope of meeting her. Whatta gal. 

5. Adelaide (17:30, 8 Dec 2011)

We pulled into Adelaide over two hours late, so there was little chance of travelling into the nearby city centre. The train was due to pull out again in an hour, hoping to get its schedule back on (ahem) track.

So I hung around the GSR facility at Adelaide Parklands Station to see the next concert. Despite the delay, there was a crowd of 100 or so to see the singer, and to listen to a moving story about how the Royal Flying Doctor Service flew a young man to Melbourne for an organ transplant.

6. Nearing the Great Victoria Desert, South Australia (06:30, 9 Dec 2011)

So far on the journey we'd passed through a variety of landscapes, both urban and bush. Now, back on schedule, we were entering the most fascinating landscape of the journey - desert, including the stark Nullarbor Plain.

This early morning snap from the train (note the Xmas decoration) is still mostly green, but the low scrub and red earth are a hint of what's soon to come...

Join me next week for song and tears on a treeless plain, lively downtown Cook (population 4), studiously cool stockmen, seriously underdressed barmaids, and a shining new ocean.

Disclosure time... on this trip I travelled courtesy of Great Southern Rail.

Indian Pacific 3: Cook to Perth

The final chapter of my three-day journey from Sydney to Perth aboard the Indian Pacific, the train that traverses a continent...

Friday 4 December 2009

10am, Cook

We’re on the longest straight stretch of rail in the world - 478 kilometres without a single bend - when we arrive at Cook.

It’s another place named after an early Australian Prime Minister. Our previous stop, Watson, was presumably named after Chris Watson, the world’s first Labor PM in 1904, and Cook is named after Joseph Cook, PM from 1913-1914 (and surely there must be a Deakin stopping place somewhere about here as well).

It’s a tiny town of just four people, we’re told. One of them is the proprietor of the souvenir shop, the only place open. There are no kids here any more so the school is closed, and the neatly maintained houses set back beyond a broad white stony track are apparently mostly empty.

I wander around the clearing between the buildings, as does everyone else, then return to the shop to buy a card marking the world's longest rail straight to send to my Polish friend Magda, whose Warsaw address is the final destination of an intermittent trickle of postcards from the more exotic places I visit.

It’s hot, dry and desolate here, but you can tell it was once a viable if tiny township, servicing the trains that passed. I can’t help thinking about what a great writers’ retreat it would make - no distractions, not even the Internet. But a couple of my colleagues look aghast when I mention the idea. “Writers’ prison, more like,” one suggests. But I like the idea.

4pm, Rawlinna

Finally we’re across the border into Western Australia, though there’s a lot of the state to cover between here and the coast. At 4pm we pull into Rawlinna, a stop serving a vast sheep station of a million hectares, within which it can take hours to traverse a single paddock.

After the bleakness of Watson and Cook, it’s surprising to step off the train onto a small but healthy patch of lawn in front of the closed station building. A short distance away is the former post office, also closed and dilapidated, but with signs of having been abandoned not many years before.

There are hardly any children at this stop, rather an assortment of adults from the sheep station and other unknown locales; they're generally of the Akubra hat wearing, hard working stockman type. Shannon Noll and his guitarists perform within the shade at one end of the station verandah, the audience enjoys the music, then Santa hands out his gifts to the few young ones in attendance.

While that’s going on, I chat to a young French guy named Robert, who’s travelling in the sit-up Red Class. He caught my eye at a previous stop as he appears very young, maybe about 20, way below the age of the elderly travellers common on the train.

“I’m from Lyons,” he says.

Why did he choose the three day sit-up option?

“Because I wanted to see all the country,” he replies. “I’ve seen Sydney and Melbourne, and I wanted to see what was in the middle.”

“And it was cheaper, too,” he adds.

Then we’re off.

8.30pm, Kalgoorlie

After 24 hours we’re back in the realm of mobile phone reception and Internet connectivity. Just outside the big mining town it kicks back in, everyone’s phones start beeping, and I dash off a few postings via Facebook and Twitter.

Then, after the train pulls into the impressive stone station in the first big settlement we’ve seen since Adelaide, I walk into town with a bunch of my colleagues. We’ve decided to pass up the scheduled tour in favour of having a drink at one of Kal’s many elegant 19th century pubs.

Though the Exchange Hotel, where we end up, ain’t too elegant - in fact the ladies behind the bar keep taking off layers of clothing as the night wears on. Perhaps it’s the hot desert weather? Something seems to be raising the temperature in here.

At 10pm we return to the train via through the mining city's massively wide streets, past colonial-era buildings and the famous statue of Paddy Hannan, the discoverer of Kalgoorlie’s gold in 1893. There are party pies laid out in the lounge car - as if we haven’t had enough food -and people are cheerfully but a little sleepily relating their brief Kal encounters.

And now to bed. In the morning - Perth!

Saturday 5 December

7.30am, on board

We’re well into the flat, dry wheatfields region east of Perth now, passing fields dotted with giant wheels of hay, looking like clever pastoral art installations.

The call for breakfast has just been delivered via the PA system, but I’m determined to upload my first Indian Pacific blog posting while I’m actually on the train, so I curse softly as I wait in my cabin for my iPhone to maintain reception long enough to click on ‘upload’. Bang on 7.30am I’m able to do so, the blog is updated, and I troop the three car lengths back to the dining car.

It’s our last meal onboard and everyone is cheerful but tired, having enjoyed the journey and companionship but, I think, looking forward to arrival. It’s going to be odd to rejoin a world which contains dimensions heading off in all directions - not just length - and to not have the day’s rhythms dictated by a neat schedule of meals, tours and socialising that becomes surprisingly comfortable and satisfying once you settle into it.

Just after 9am we finish our measured slide through the eastern suburbs of Perth, and pull into the East Perth Terminal precisely on time. We’ve travelled 4,352 kilometres across a continent, eaten good food, enjoyed excellent company, visited the wildnerness, and heard Shannon Noll sing Santa Claus is Coming to Town eight times. It’s been an experience.

[read the first instalment (Sydney to Broken Hill) here]
[read the second instalment (Adelaide to Watson) here]

Disclosure time: On this trip I travelled courtesy of Great Southern Rail.

[And as this is the 50th blog posting I’ve uploaded this year to Aerohaveno, it seems a neat point at which to rest. I’m taking a break from travel over Xmas and the New Year, and will post again around the end of the first week of January 2010. See you then... and happy travels!]

Indian Pacific 2: Adelaide to Watson

In which I continue the chronicle of my three-day journey from Sydney to Perth, via the mighty Indian Pacific transcontinental train...

Thursday 3 December 2009

3.45pm, Adelaide

After 25 hours on the rails, we arrive at Adelaide Parklands, the euphemistically renamed interstate rail terminal at Keswick, an industrial zone next to the green belt that rings the city’s centre.

I’ve been here before at the end of the Overland train journey from Melbourne’s spectacular Southern Cross Station, and it’s as much of an anticlimax when compared with the grandeur of Sydney Central.

Several of us lob onto a coach for a whistlestop tour of the city. The tour tracks around the edge of the urban core which was set within parks by Adelaide’s founders, allegedly for defensive purposes.

I say “allegedly” because our guide issues explanations which sometimes sound unlikely, and which I suspect might be urban myths. We pass by elegant stone mansions, parks, major landmarks such as the GPO and Town Hall, and the high-class residences of North Adelaide.

It’s all very well for an hour or so, but the tour drags on, we never get out of the coach, and the driver’s commentary becomes ever more eccentric until he’s telling us that the traffic lights have been fixed so motorists have to use more fuel while idling so the government can pocket extra fuel excise! We hard-bitten journos (OK, soft travel writers) roll our eyes particularly emphatically at this gem.

The food on the train is good - I had curried braised chicken for lunch - but the portions are relatively modest, so I buy a baguette and coffee at the terminal’s cafe on our release from the tour. For sheer weirdness you can’t beat a ham, cheese and pineapple baguette, so I order that. Remember, this is the city that gave us the pie floater - a guilty pleasure at any time.

6.40pm, on board

Heading north once more out of Adelaide. It’s worth noting that the city has quietly become the hub of Australian train travel. From Adelaide you can catch a regular train to four state or territory capitals: Perth, Melbourne, Darwin and Sydney. Only Sydney can beat this, with services to Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne and Canberra.

10pm, Port Augusta

We stop briefly in Port Augusta for servicing, and everyone’s allowed off for a bit of air on the platform while the train is rolled forward a short distance. It’s always refreshing to be out of the train, to realise there is a world out there that isn’t contained within a long steel tube, and it’s cool and quiet on the platform. Above us is a brilliant star field, with the intensity you only see far away from big city lights.

Friday 4 December

8am, Watson

This is totally different, our first truly desert experience. We’re standing in a stark, open space at the stopping place known as Watson. There’s nothing here to denote civilisation: no town, no platform, no man-made structures at all.

But there are galahs - two of them fly over the train just after we disembark - and people, plenty of them, gathered here to hear Shannon Noll sing and to meet Santa Claus. There are many Aboriginal kids who’ve been driven here from two schools hours away, and they smile at the swarming media as they wait for the stars in their school uniforms.

When Noll emerges, he takes his place on a low gravel mound alongside his two guitarists, completely unplugged, and belts out What About Me. Behind us is a lone tree that’s been festooned with streamers by people who’ve camped overnight, a rough and ready Bush Christmas tree. After he finishes, neatly placing his hat on one of the schoolkids’ heads, Santa climbs down from the train and is mobbed.

I can’t help smiling at the unlikeliness of it all - the long silver train, the wilderness we’re standing in, and its inhabitants and passengers mixing in the company of a pop idol and Father Christmas. It’s yet another impossibility summoned into existence by the Indian Pacific.

What lies further west? Is Cook the place I want to settle down? Who keeps the lawn at Rawlinna looking so nice? And is the desert heat really the reason that Kalgoorlie’s barmaids dress so minimalistically? All is revealed in the final Indian Pacific episode next week...

[read the first instalment (Sydney to Broken Hill) here]
[read the third instalment (Cook to Perth) here]

Disclosure time: On this trip I travelled courtesy of Great Southern Rail.

Indian Pacific 1: Sydney to Broken Hill

As a wise Australian philosopher once wrote, it’s a long way to the top if you wanna rock and roll. It’s also a long way from Sydney to Perth, especially if you catch the train.

From Sydney’s Central Station to the East Perth Terminal, the Indian Pacific train crosses almost 4400 kilometres of cityscape, mountains, bush, outback and the featureless Nullarbor Plain.

It’s one of the world’s great train journeys, and I’m writing about it right now in the sumptuous Outback Explorer Lounge car, as the extraordinarily flat, scrubby desert landscape flicks past the windows, utterly treeless and fascinating.

This is the (edited) story of how I travelled from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean in the company of a media pack, the singer Shannon Noll, and Santa Claus, on a mission to spread festive cheer...

Wednesday 2 December 2009

11am, Sydney

It’s fitting that I should start my journey in the quintessential part of Sydney, in fact my favourite spot in Sydney - sitting on the restaurant deck outside the Museum of Contemporary Art and gazing across the ambling tourist crowds and Circular Quay ferries to the Opera House. I sit here for an hour admiring the view and marvelling at how well the barista has made this coffee, considering the beans come from a big roaster I’ve never been impressed with before.

Then it’s off to Central Station, and the big long silver carriages stretching down both platforms 1 and 2. There are 26 cars in total, including two locomotives. The train’s so long that it has to be split in two for boarding, then connected on departure.

My Gold Class twin cabin is a very compact space about two square metres in area, lined with pine panelling in a vaguely retro style than could fit anywhere between the 1920s and he 1960s. It’s small but well organised, with a mirror, two small cupboards, and a sofa that turns into bed, with another bunk bed above. The bathroom is a clever bit of engineering, with a fold-down metal sink above a fold-down metal toilet bowl, and a shower head above (a wrap-around shower curtain stops the toilet paper getting wet).

Two carriages along is the Outback Explorer Lounge. It’s a plush, comfy carriage, with curving lounges set cleverly against opposing walls to allow conversation while maintaining a walkway down the middle. It’s safe to say that the only exploration happening here will involve an examination of the beneficial effects of combining gin and tonic.

Beyond the lounge car is the Queen Adelaide Restaurant dining car, with neat booths at white tablecloth-covered tables. Menu is surprisingly diverse and modern, a big jump up from the sort of cruise buffet set-up I was half expecting.

At 2.55pm, we pull out and Sydney starts sliding away...

7.40pm, Bathurst

After almost five hours of travel, we step out onto the platform of Bathurst Station to find crowds of schoolkids standing in a temporary stage area, screaming out and waiting for Shannon Noll to step off the train. I should explain - the train we’re on is the annual Christmas Special, via which Great Southern Rail thanks the communities it passes through by presenting them with short concerts and a Santa visitation along the way.

The kids sigh impatiently through a couple of announcements, then temporarily give up, turn to face the audience, and belt out some Xmas numbers including the inevitable Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

They’ve done enough for their reward - Shannon Noll bounds on stage and sings a few numbers, bantering with the audience and getting the kids to sing along. I find myself smiling; it’s good to be out of the train for a while, standing on the platform of an 1876 station in a cool breeze, watching the sun fade and a bunch of locals with their kids having the best time because a famous singer has been brought to their town by the Indian Pacific.

I momentarily feel a bit like Santa; then Santa Claus himself appears from the train (we've brought our own) and hands sweets to the enthusiastic kids, who are happy to refocus their attention on an even bigger celebrity.

Thursday 3 December

6.15am, on board

You think (hope) you’re on a trip like this to relax and lie around the cabin reading a book. However, there are points when the train stops long enough for passengers to go on a short tour, and due to timetable dictates it may necessarily be at an inconvenient time. I’m struck again by how much the train is an “event” to these isolated towns, an unstoppable visitation from the outside world, as predictable and unavoidable as the changing of seasons.

In this case we’re due to blow in to Broken Hill at 7am. So at 6.15am we’re consuming pastries and coffee, and glancing out the window at the new scenery. It’s changed significantly overnight - last time it was light we were in the green hilliness of the Blue Mountains, now it’s a much drier, somewhat redder environment with a lot of low scrub and fewer trees. It’s a hint of the wilderness that awaits us further ahead. On cue, we spot a few kangaroos hopping lazily across the dusty earth.

7am, Broken Hill

At Broken Hill, the train is so long that we have to be led through several carriages ahead of us to reach the platform. It’s an interesting jaunt - one carriage has economy class passengers in sit-up, one has curvy walls to its sleepers which make you feel as if someone slipped something dodgy into your drink the previous night, one is a kind of maintenance car which resembles a slum of this long travelling town. It’s surreal to thread our way ever forward, forward through the narrow corridors, until finally we arrive on the stark unembellished platform to a board a coach for a local tour.

The problem with a whistlestop tour like this is that, well, it’s a whistlestop - it has to be brief. We’re driven through the streets by a classically laconic Aussie guide who doesn’t mind speaking plainly about his home town. Broken Hill is slowly dying, he says, because mining work is subsiding and there’s nothing else to do, so young people have to move away to work.

Underlining the point, he indicates two retirement home complexes in the centre of town as we drive past, describing their comparative advantages. Call me Mr Negative, but as a Texan friend once said when we were living in Egypt, “I don’t mind living here, but I don’t want to die here.”

Continuing the downbeat theme, he takes us up to a hill above the town, that lies along the ore seam that separates Broken Hill into north and south. There’s a memorial here to all the men who died in the mines over a century or more; their names inscribed on glass plates within a suitably industrial-looking rust-coloured monument. Next to each name is a slot for flowers, and there are many roses placed within them, brightening up the sombre monument. There are even roses for men killed back in the 19th century, which is touching.

8.20am, on board

Back onto the train for breakfast. The squeezy nature of the seating is actually an asset, as it forces people to be sociable. I’m sitting next to a French woman who lives in Oz and writes for Francophone publications internationally, a radio journalist from Sydney, and the Adelaide man who’s been commissioned to play Santa on our trip. The conversation is interesting.

Now we have about six hours to Adelaide. Return to my cabin to read or sleep, or hang about the lounge and socialise? I go for the solo option, and make a start on Paul Theroux’s recent Ghost Train to the Eastern Star while watching the landscape slip by.

What lies ahead in the desert? Will gin and tonic prevail, or should I try some of that nice sangiovese? Who is rigging the traffic lights of Adelaide? And is Theroux still such a grumpy traveller? Find out the answers in next week’s episode as I continue my progress west...

[read the second instalment (Adelaide to Watson) here]
[read the third instalment (Cook to Perth) here]

Disclosure time... on this trip I travelled courtesy of Great Southern Rail.