Indian Pacific

Somewhere in the middle of the Nullarbor Plain, the Indian Pacific runs for 478 kilometres without a single bend. It is the longest dead-straight stretch of railway track in the world — not the longest in Australia, the longest anywhere — and it exists because out here there was quite literally nothing to build around. No hill, no river, no town. Just a flat, treeless, endless plain, and a surveyor who drew a line across it and saw no reason to stop.

That straight is the emblem of the whole journey, which is this: 4,352 kilometres from Sydney on the Pacific to Perth on the Indian Ocean — ocean to ocean, across the entire width of a continent, in one go. It takes seventy to seventy-five hours, which is three nights aboard.

What surprises people is how young it is. Australia had railways from the 1850s, but a through train from Sydney to Perth did not run until 23 February 1970. The reason is one of the great self-inflicted wounds of railway history: the Australian colonies each chose a different track gauge, so trains couldn't run between them. Crossing the country meant changing trains at every border. The Indian Pacific only became possible once decades of gauge-conversion work had finally stitched the country into a single railway.

When it launched, it was the third longest passenger train journey on earth by distance — behind only the Trans-Siberian and the Canadian. It still crosses a continent, and it still does it the slow way, three nights of it, run once a week by Journey Beyond — the same company behind the Ghan.

Like the Ghan, it is a luxury train now, in Gold and Platinum sleepers, and like the Ghan the product it is actually selling is distance — the sheer, disorienting scale of crossing Australia at ground level. The difference is what you cross. The Ghan goes up the red centre. The Indian Pacific goes across the Nullarbor, which is emptier still, and out there it passes places that have no reason to exist except the railway: a fuel stop called Cook with a population you could count on your fingers, rows of abandoned railway cottages at Loongana where families once lived to keep the line open.

Three nights, one train a week, and half a continent of nothing. If that is a holiday to you — and to some people it profoundly is — book it.

Sydney to Perth is one of those journeys where the map does more than any description can: a line straight across the bottom third of Australia, ocean to ocean, with almost nothing written along it.

The first day is the gentle one. The train climbs out of Sydney and over the ranges onto the western plains, and for a while there is still farmland, still towns, still the ordinary furniture of a settled country. Adelaide comes on the second day, a proper city and one of the major stops on the way across.

And then, west of Adelaide, the country empties out and stays empty in a way that has to be experienced at ground level to land. This is the Nullarbor — the name is dog-Latin for "no trees", and it is accurate. A vast, flat, treeless limestone plain, one of the largest single pieces of nothing on the planet, and the railway crosses the whole of it.

Somewhere in the middle comes the straight: 478 kilometres without a curve. On a map it is a ruled line. On the train it is a strange, hypnotic stretch of hours where the track ahead and the track behind vanish to identical points and nothing changes at all. People find it either unbearable or unforgettable, and often both.

The stops out here are the strange, wonderful part. The train pauses at Cook, South Australia — a settlement that was built purely to service the railway, once had a few hundred people, and now has almost none. There are some old buildings, a set of gaol cells, a sign with a bleak joke on it, and an enormous quantity of silence. It exists because trains crossing a desert need fuel and water, and for no other reason.

The train also stops at Rawlinna, a tiny settlement out on the Nullarbor sheep country, where the off-train experience is dinner under the stars in the middle of the plain. And at Loongana you pass the ghosts of the old railway: rows of Commonwealth Railways cottages, abandoned on red dirt, where families once lived hundreds of kilometres from anywhere solely to keep the line open. Modern trains don't need them. The houses are still standing, slowly going back to the plain.

Then the Nullarbor ends, the mining country of Western Australia arrives, and on the third night the train comes down out of the interior towards the coast and into Perth — one of the most isolated cities of its size anywhere, which you have just reached from the far side of the country by three days of railway.

Onboard, the rhythm is the Ghan's: eat, sit in the lounge, talk to people who have chosen this, watch the plain. But the Indian Pacific is a night longer, and the emptiness is more total. The Ghan crosses a landscape. The Indian Pacific crosses an absence — and if you are the sort of traveller who finds that thrilling rather than tedious, there is nothing else in the world quite like the middle day.

One train a week, three nights aboard, ocean to ocean. Like the Ghan, the timetable is more a shape than a thing to catch to the minute — but it runs on fixed weekly departure days, so pin those first.

Real 2026 departures (Journey Beyond — confirm before booking):

It runs weekly, all year, covering 4,352 km including the 478 km dead-straight across the Nullarbor — the longest stretch of straight track in the world — in 70–75 hours.

Good to know:

• It is a night longer than the Ghan — three nights versus two.
• The Nullarbor day is the point, and the test — the emptiness is either the best day of the trip or the one that breaks you.
• The stops out there are brief — Cook and the plain settlements are photo-stops and leg-stretches, not excursions; what's offered varies by departure.
• It runs all year; spring and autumn are kindest at the Sydney and Perth ends, though the plain itself is hot whenever.
• Fly one leg. Almost everyone flies the return — book that before the train.

Departure days/times as of the 2026 season. Confirm the current schedule with the operator — see the Tickets section below.

Tickets come from Journey Beyond, which also runs the Ghan. It is one train a week across the width of the country, so book early and expect luxury-train prices. Gold Service is a roomette or twinette sleeper with meals in the restaurant car — comfortable, but compact, and it is your world for three nights. Platinum buys much larger cabins and a private lounge, and on a 75-hour journey the case for space is stronger than on almost any train anywhere.

Three nights is the commitment, so be honest about whether you want that before paying for it. Almost everyone flies one way; arrange that before booking the train. And know what the product is: unlike the Ghan's tour-heavy schedule, much of the Indian Pacific is simply crossing the plain. That is the point of it, not an omission.

The Indian Pacific is really about the space between places, but it starts, passes through and ends somewhere, and those somewheres are worth time.

On planning around it: because the train runs weekly and takes three nights, treat it as the spine of a longer Australian trip rather than a thing you slot in. Fly in to one coast, take the train to the other, and spend real time at both ends.

The train is the hotel — three nights of it — and there is no other option, because the Indian Pacific is sleepers only. So the choice, as on the Ghan, is Gold or Platinum, and here it matters even more, because this is a night longer.

A Gold roomette or twinette is comfortable and includes your meals, but it is a small space and you will be in it, awake and asleep, for the better part of three days. Platinum buys a much larger cabin and a private lounge. On a 75-hour journey — the longest on this site outside the Trans-Siberian — that is not a frill; it is the difference between three nights you enjoy and three you endure. Decide by how well you cope with small rooms and long stretches of the same view.

At the two ends:

• Sydney — the full range of a major world city. Arrive a night early; a transcontinental train is not something to risk on a tight connection.
• Perth and Fremantle — plenty of choice, and the port town of Fremantle is the nicer place to base yourself if you have a few days: smaller, older, on the water.

Unlike the Ghan, there is no sensible way to break this journey partway. The stops on the Nullarbor are minutes long and in the middle of nowhere; there is nowhere to stay at Cook, and no next train for a week. This is a ride-it-through proposition. Settle in, take the cabin you'll be comfortable in, and let three days of Australia go past the window.

And the practical rule is the Ghan's rule again: one train a week, so fly one leg. Plan the flight first, the train second, and the days at each end around both.