The Nullabor by train, Australia

As the sun fades over the vast tracts of wheat fields on the horizon, as the natural daylight slowly ekes away to be replaced by the faint glow of reading lamps, the Indian Pacific ploughs along relentlessly.

It’s eating miles, conquering landscape that is simply not designed to be conquered, lulling its passengers into a dazed semi-sleep.

The next morning, the scene is bleak. Barren wasteland to the left, barren wasteland to the right. The legendary Nullarbor Plain, hard red dirt broken only by saltbush. The desolation of the area, the total nothingness, is difficult to comprehend.

It’s an area twice the sif England, populated by fewer than would live in a small English village. It’s the same view for hours – the same view for days. Nothing left, nothing right, nothing behind, nothing in front. It’s isolating, and puts you right in your place. If ever there was a place to make you feel like you are a tiny, insignificant blip in a powerful, overbearing universe, this is it.

It’s almost mesmeric. The half-mile long train sears through, but appears to be getting precisely nowhere. The journey from Adelaide to Perth takes nearly 40 hours, and unless you’ve the eyes and knowledge of a trained geologist, the landscape barely changes.

One stretch of track goes for 478km without curve, kink or bend. Dead straight, and the view at the start is the same as it is at the end. It may seem mind-numbingly boring, but the sensation, and the sense of achievement is what makes this one of the world’s greatest train journeys.

Aside from a brief sojourn in Port Augusta (never struck you as a great place to spend a few days? Well, there’s a reason for that) on the first night, our first major stop was in the heart of the Nullarbor, at a tiny place called Cook. Once this was the major town of the Nullarbor – now it has only four inhabitants. The only reason for it to exist is as a refueling station for the Indian Pacific.

There is a hospital – shut down, with a sign begging people to get ill. There is a school, again shut down, turned into a souvenir shop. There is a nine hole golf course – it’s clearly in disuse, and simply hasn’t a blade of grass on it. The place is just surreal – like it only exists as an afterthought.

Sporadically across the Nullarbor, there are tiny hamlets like this, entirely reliant on the train for their food supplies, post and water. It’s a lifestyle of utter resilience, that from the comfort of the train – legroom, showers, lounges, bars, restaurants – cannot really be related to.

It is only at dusk that we finally leave the Nullarbor behind, drawing into Kalgoorlie, Australia’s gold mining capital. It’s a relief to alight from the train for three hours while it refuels, and everyone heads to the pub. It’s not really for the drink, but for the chance to re-integrate back into normal society after the different world of the wilderness.

From then on it’s an overnight journey for the remainder of the distance to Perth. Peering through the window at gleaming skyscrapers, you know you’ve finally reached the journey’s end, but you also know that it’s not been an ordinary journey.

Crossing such vast desert is a journey you can be rightly proud of, something you can tell your kids about, something that can beat most of your friends’ travel boasts. Something, that if you’re intending to say you’ve seen all Australia has to offer, simply has to be done.

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