3 LINE IN THE SAND
The brochure touts fabulous feasts and wicked wine but, curiously, makes no mention of the onboard entertainment: tantalising tales of clandestine love trysts and rumours of civil war that lure you in during the 4352-kilometre journey. But I spiral into existential panic when I hear that there is no wi-fi on the continent-crossing Indian Pacific (greatsouthernrail.com.au). My phone service provider fails to appreciate that people like to, on occasion, not only travel far outside the outskirts of major metropolises, but also constantly digi-brag about their experiences. What will become of me, armed only with sporadic internet (at best) for three and a half days as I span ‘the longest stretch of straight railway track in the world’?
As the 774-metre-long, Perth-bound train departs Sydney’s Central Station, my innate, I-should-be-doing-something-constructive guilt trip kicks in. I stroke my iPhone like it’s bound for the pet cemetery. Over the following hours, the big-city digital angst dissipates. I sync with the train’s swaying, dawdling rhythm, hypnotised by lush Blue Mountains vistas, with just a little assistance from a strategic glass (well, glasses) of Henschke Mount Edelstone Shiraz.
I communicate the way we as humans used to do, having a good old-fashioned face-to-face with reasonably like-minded strangers in the Outback Explorer Lounge. “Our families don’t even know we’re here,” says one half of a grey nomad couple. They nervously finish each other’s sentences, all giggly, like they’ve just bounded arm in arm out of a dance hall together for the very first time.
It unfolds that both of their lifelong partners have passed away and they only recently
