If I had a dollar for every time someone said, “Oooh, I’d love to do the Trans-Siberian Railway some day,” I’d have about… $26 (people who say they’d be millionaires are lying. It’s not true. I hate those people). The sum may not buy me a yacht, but is a fairly handy amount when it comes to Happy Hour.

I, however, had never wanted to do any long railway journeys. They always sounded boring and bad for you; stuck in the same seat for 73 days or whatever it is. Trains don’t enjoy a glamorous image back in the UK. There are the trainspotters themselves, in their anoraks and bobble hats, and then there’s the heroin (Trainspotting). My memories of British Rail as a child involve endless delays, carriages full of screaming kids and the howling honk of egg sandwiches.

However, my problem was I needed to get from Sydney to Perth. Flying seemed like a waste: missing out 4,352km of Australia (that’s Los Angeles to New York with about 300km left over – for the record, London to Moscow is about the same as Adelaide to Perth).

Driving too has its inherent risks and costs, such as petrol and, er, we didn’t have anything to drive. So after some debate, the train was the best option. But I wasn’t exactly as cockahoop as the ladyfriend as we boarded the Indian Pacific at Sydney’s Central Station and slowly pulled away.

When I told people I was going Sydney to Perth on the train, almost everyone – Australians included – said, “Oh, is that the Ghan?” It’s not the Ghan. The Indian Pacific got its name because it travels between those two oceans. The Ghan only goes between Adelaide andDarwin. That takes like 34 minutes or something.

The Indian Pacific takes three nights and nearly three days – 65 hours if you want to be Pacific.The Ghan is for wimps. This train is for real men (and, er, women).

Despite my initial reservations (and I don’t mean the tickets), as we passed the endless hazy canyons of the Blue Mountains an intoxicating sense of adventure began to take hold. I say intoxicating because I was also getting intoxicated. There’s a bar on board. I like bars. (And bras.)

An hour or so later we were into rolling green hills and fertile farmland, the sort that looks just like Ireland (probably). We soon realised most of our time was best spent in the diner car, playing cards, getting slowly sozzled, making new friends and gambling.

There wasn’t a casino as such, but things to bet on included: the time of the first kangaroo sighting (within two hours, at 3-1; ker-ching!), first emu (the next morning, at 5-1; double ker-ching!) and a duck-billed platypus (100-1; in retrospect I shouldn’t have placed all my winnings on that one).

We awake with the sun and suddenly we’re in Broken Hill. The edge of New South Wales, middle-of-nowhere mining town that sounds like it should be a Clint Eastwood film. In fact it’s more interesting than any Western.

Getting sozzled

Broken Hill is one of few Aussies towns with a genuine history; largely one of trade unions (the town hall is nicknamed ‘The Kremlin’) battling unethical mining companies (Australian’s largest sand-groper started off here and they’re not well-liked).

There are moving memorials to miners, plus lots of art. As the underground industry dwindles, artists are flocking here for the wonderful light and dreamy Outback imagery. Also, fact fans, they have 36 traffic lights underground and only thee above. It’s a sad place though. I wouldn’t ever want to live here.

We’re in the real Outback now. It’s so flat and orange, enchanting and compelling, epic and hypnotic. The hallucinogenic landscape hasn’t changed for thousands of years, which is not something you can say in most of Europe. My mind plays tricks on me; are those trees, emus, or people on the horizon, hundreds and hundreds of kilometres away? (It’s no place for eye-spy.) 

I can’t help staring at it, even though, really, there’s so little detail to see.

The sky has become so very, very big, it feels like it’s going to swallow me up. We see some lonely, lonely places. And camels! (I think). At rare road crossings, locals take photos of me (well, of the train). I fall asleep in my seat and awake to glowing yellow fields and shimmering salt lakes of South Australia.

In Adelaide we jump off to explore on our own, sample some pubs and, but for a desperate taxi dash, wouldn’t have made it back in time. That night we play cards, drink and watch truck light streak past in the distance, likes comets.

On the third day we awake to more changed scenery: the infamous and surreal Nullarbor Plain – from the Latin for ‘no trees’. The subtlest change of scenery out here, like smaller bushes or a change in the Earth’s hue, has the biggest impact and can feel like your world’s been turned upside down.

It goes without saying that with the vast skies, the sunsets are magical, full of so many colours that some of them don’t even have names.

Beyond Thunderdome

 

We stop at Cook: population four. Most of the buildings are condemned, there’s no road, drinking water has to be pumped from 90m below and flies are really very insistent about wanting to get up my nose. It’s a Mad Max hellhole. Suddenly Broken Hill seems like a great place to live.

That night we pull into Kalgoorlie, famed for its brothels and mines and where beer is cheaper than water. “It wasn’t very hot here today,” says our guide, “only 37°C”. 

I was expecting a tumbleweed dustville, but it’s modern and shiny. There’s plenty of money about – the town supplies about 20 per cent of the country’s GDP. 

We visit the Super Pit gold mine. Disgustingly massive, it looks like the scene in Lord of the Rings where you see the Uruk-hai orcs slaving away underground at Isengard, but with Tonka trucks. We have a few midis in a bar and tour the brothels (from the outside), which share a street with the police station. It’s a strange place, is Kalgoorlie.

The next morning the scenery is greener, with rocky hills and canyons, a mini Blue Mountains. And suddenly we’re in Perth’s roller-flat suburbs and it’s all over. We’ve crossed one very big continent.

Despite my reluctance, I was very sad to be getting off. It ended too soon and was so much better than I’d imagined. I could have gone on for days; seeing curious off-the-beaten-track Oz and semi-drunkenly daydreaming out of the window. It was fascinating and blissful. I think I’ll buy an anorak and a bobble hat. Trains are for rail, man.

The damage & the details: Travelling from Sydney to Perth (or vice versa) on the Indian Pacific (Ph: 13 21 47, www.gsr.com.au) costs from $313 with a backpacker card.

Trackpacking

The original pan-continental line can be traced back to the early 1900s when a skeleton rail link extended from the east to the west coast. That is, except for a 1,996km gap between WA’s Kalgoorlie and SA’s Port Augusta.

In 1917, a construction team started out from each town, attempting to meet in the middle. An inch or two out in their calculations would have led to disaster. Much as I sort of wish they’d messed it up, for comedy value, they didn’t. Nice one bruva.

Even then however the tracks were on different gauges, so the standard Sydney to Perth journey involved five separate changes. All a bit of a kerfuffle really. 

At the end of the 19th century Australia was still a collection of colonies with different governments (and different beers). The promise of a railway linking east to west was used as an enticement to WA to persuade them to join in with the rest (they were never that keen and have tried to secede since). 

It wasn’t until 1970 that the train completed an unbroken journey between the two cities and a whopping 10,000 people greeted the train in Perth. 2010 is the railway’s 40th anniversary. 

There are four main ticket options; Gold and Platinum are lottery-winner prices while the Red backpacker-friendly service has two options; the Red Service Twin Sleeper Cabin (essentially a cabin for two) or the cheaper Day/Nighter Seat. 

All Red travellers have access to the diner area, a cracking spot for socialising, boozing, eating (obviously) and gazing out of the window for hours on end. There’s free water and showers and the food is surprisingly affordable. You can also pop your vehicle onboard if you want.