Road trippin’

Road trippin’ with my two favorite allies

Fully loaded we got snacks and supplies

It’s time to leave this town, it’s time to steal away

Let’s go get lost anywhere 

Let’s go get lost, let’s go get lost

Blue, you sit so pretty west of the one

Sparkles light with yellow icing, just a mirror for the sun

Just a mirror for the sun

Just a mirror for the sun

Road Trippin’. Red Hot Chili Peppers

“G’day, ladies and gentlemen. Boys and girls! 

This is your buffet captain David, speaking. Welcome aboard the XPT train with service from Sydney to Melbourne. Our buffet crew has changed in Albury, and we are super stoked to serve you from here on all the way to the great big city of Melbourne. 

Come and check us out – and don’t forget to get food and drinks! Hot meals and fresh sandwiches, hot drinks and cold. We got coffee and tea, water and soda. We even got beer! So come and drop us a cheer! 

That’s it for now from your buffet captain David. Now sit back and relax and enjoy your ride! But don’t forget to come by to say hi!”

We are aboard the XPT train from Sydney to Melbourne. An 11-hour train ride that covers the over 950 km distance between the two largest cities in Australia. Left behind swimming in the rock pools of the Northern Beaches, body surfing at Bondi, and museums and fine dining in lofty spaces, to make our way to Melbourne.

Sydney Central Station early in the morning – three women, five pieces of luggage. And the holy balloon. We settled into our somewhat dated but very comfortable seats in the First Class saloon and started our journey through the scenic countryside of New South Wales and Victoria. With a slow but steady clackety-clack, we were making our way South, passing through grassland, farms and numerous little townships along the way: 

Kilometre 134 (1 hour and 42 minutes) – Moss Vale. A town in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, in the Wingecarribee Shire. Did someone say the Shire? Time for a second breakfast! A coffee in a tea bag? I go for a Coke and Australian Sea Salt Potato Chips.

Kilometre 168 (2 hours and 31 minutes)  – Goulburn. A small city in the Southern Tablelands of NSW and Australia’s first inland city, as proclaimed by Queen Victoria in 1863. I visit the saloon’s toilet for the first time. A compact little metal compartment that serves as a toilet and a shower at the same time. Fold down the toilet seat. Do your business. Flush. Fold it back up. Fold down the sink. Wash hands. Fold it back up. All the while, the shower head is looking over you and the plastic shower curtain whispers from the rhythmic movement of the train.

Kilometre 236 (3 hours and 47 minutes) – Yass Junction. Three hours southwest of Sydney, through the stunning scenery of the Southern Tablelands, is the picturesque town of Yass. The town’s name derives from the Aboriginal word for running water, yarrh. I don’t see the Yass Valley river, but I discover the water bubbler on board our train. I refill my bottle and return to my seat.

Kilometre 351 (5 hours and 47 minutes) – Junee. We are halfway between Sydney and Melbourne, and it is time for a hot meal from the buffet car! With a wide variety of meal options, we settle for a dry Spaghetti Bolognese and Chicken with Rice. Though clearly not very appealing to the eye, both meals taste surprisingly good. Or hours and hours of dried grassland swooshing by has numbed our senses. With no Wi-Fi or in-seat entertainment onboard this train, you begin to appreciate the little things. I read half a book. I look out of the window. I see two kangaroos. My sister says she saw a giraffe. She’s just jealous.

Kilometre 454 (6 hours and 13 minutes) Wagga Wagga. Another weird and wonderfully named Aussie town. The word Wagga Wagga comes from the Wiradjuri word waga, meaning a place to dance, a place of celebration. To commemorate the event, we order another round of tea bag-coffee and Mar bars for afternoon tea. We are crossing into Victoria State. The mood is celebratory. Only five more hours to go!

Kilometre 646 (7 hours 31 minutes) Albury. Located in the Indigo Valley at the state border to Victoria, this is where the NSW railway line and Victoria line first met in 1883. It used to be that all passengers had to change trains to continue their journey to Melbourne. Since 1962, the train’s passengers can rest in their comfortable blue seats and continue without switching trains. Since then, not much improvement has happened in the Australian railway system.

A high-speed train option to connect Sydney and Melbourne is being discussed regularly, but so far, with little success. In November 2022, the Federal Parliament of Australia passed the new High-Speed Rail Authority Bill 2022, marking the start of the establishment of the High-Speed Rail Authority and supporting and developing a high-speed rail network in Australia to connect major cities to significant regional locations. A high-speed rail network could allow passengers to travel between major cities and significant regional cities at speeds exceeding 250 km/h. 

Our train currently chugs along at a maximum of 160 km/h. Introducing a high-speed train that travels at 200 km/h would cut our travel time almost in half. And then there is the idea of using a bullet train. Travel time between Sydney and Melbourne across the proposed 900 km high-speed train line would be around 150 minutes. That would require an average speed of 360kph. The average speed of the Paris-Lyon TGV is 263kph. The Shanghai-Beijing service, the world’s fastest bullet train, averages 306kph.

But who wants that?  I wouldn’t be able to finish my book, see the horses and cows grazing on the pasture, and wouldn’t be able to go to the buffet cart to say hi to David and check out his hot and cool crew.

Kilometre 653 (9 hours 28 minutes) Seymour. A historic railway township located in the Southern end of the Goulburn Valley in the Shire of Mitchell, Victoria and 100 kilometres north of Melbourne. Seymour has a population of 6,569. And quite an impressive water tower. My sister wants to play Battleship. I pretend to be sleeping. Again.

Kilometre 866 (10 hours 50 minutes) Melbourne. After a day of dry grassland and lonely trees and cows hiding in the shade of the lonely trees, we slowly pull into the Southern Cross Central Train Station of Melbourne. With squealing wheels, we crawl beneath shiny high-rises and grey stone buildings. We are on our way to explore this beautiful city that we had last visited together in the final weeks before the lockdown in March 2020. We are here to explore the shopping in St Kilda, the beaches of Melbourne Harbour, the fine dining of the CBD and, of course, the excitement of the Australian Open. We are here to enjoy this beautiful city, and what better way to make an entrance than by slowly creeping into town by train? 

I have taken a few trains in my lifetime: from Germany to Greece, with a rucksack on my back and goats on my lap. Across the magical beauty of Canada in the winter. And I still dream of making the epic transcontinental crossing aboard the famous Indian Pacific from Sydney to Perth.

The XPT train may have no Wi-Fi or power. It may be dated and slow. It shows us a side of Australia that we would never have seen otherwise. 

And that kangaroo was not a giraffe! 

Cheers!