By the time we arrived in Adelaide, the journey already felt real. We had crossed long stretches of Australia by road, watched the landscape slowly change around us, and settled into the strange feeling that home was now somewhere behind us.
But boarding the Indian Pacific somehow made everything feel bigger.
This wasn’t just another leg of the trip.
This was three nights crossing Australia by train — from Adelaide to Fremantle — before we boarded our first cruise ship out of the country.
And honestly, we were excited.
A Surprisingly Elegant Beginning
What surprised us first was the atmosphere before we even stepped onboard.
Dinner at the station felt less like waiting for a train and more like the beginning of an event. The menu celebrated local Australian produce, and everything about it felt thoughtful and beautifully done.
There were prawn Bloody Marys, gin-soaked oysters served as hors d’oeuvres, and delicious mains and desserts that made us stop and look at each other more than once and say, “This is far fancier than we expected.”
It felt special.
Like we were properly setting off.
Life Onboard the Indian Pacific
Once onboard, the experience continued to surprise us.
The staff somehow seemed to know everyone’s names almost immediately. We still have no idea how they managed it. After meeting us once, they greeted us personally every time we saw them, and it created such a warm atmosphere throughout the train.
The Silver Service dining car became one of our favourite parts of the journey. Sitting down for meals while the Australian landscape rolled endlessly past the windows felt wonderfully old-fashioned in the best possible way.
Our cabin, however, was another story.
“Compact” is probably the polite word.
We had bunk beds, and climbing into the top bunk in our 60s while managing a sleep apnea machine became an adventure of its own. Looking back now, it makes us laugh far more than it did at two o’clock in the morning.
Russell had imagined the whole experience would be romantic — the gentle click-clack of the train rocking us peacefully to sleep as we crossed Australia.
The reality was slightly different.
It turned out the Indian Pacific was less “click clack” and more “rock and roll.” Sleep didn’t come particularly easily for him, although the constant movement certainly made the journey memorable.
An Evening at Rawlinna
One of the moments we remember most clearly was stopping at Rawlinna Station, which sits on the lands of the Mirning, Ngalea and Wangai peoples, and now one of Australia’s largest sheep stations occupying approximately 2.5 million acres.
Out in the middle of the vast Nullarbor, the evening somehow felt both isolated and incredibly welcoming at the same time.
There were fire pits glowing in the darkness, a guitarist playing music, people gathering together with Baileys in hand, and that strange feeling that travel sometimes creates — where complete strangers briefly feel connected simply because they’re sharing the same moment in the middle of nowhere.
It was one of those experiences that felt uniquely Australian.
Simple. Warm. Memorable.
And under the huge open sky of the Nullarbor, it felt a very long way from home already.
Arriving in Fremantle
After three nights onboard, we finally arrived in Fremantle.
We stayed only one night before boarding our first cruise ship, but by then something had shifted.
Up until that point, we still felt like we were travelling through Australia.
Now, for the first time, it truly felt like we were leaving it behind.
And the next stage of the journey was waiting.
Planning this section
Several people have asked how we managed to organise such a complicated journey without flying.
For the Australian rail section, including the Indian Pacific, we booked through Grand Journeys, we had to coordinate other parts of the trip around the set sections like this train trip.
As the journey continues, we’ll share more about how we planned routes, bookings, and the logistics of travelling from Australia to Switzerland without flying.
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