Forget beach resorts – no other holiday is as relaxing as this

There are many reasons to travel, but sometimes we simply want to get away. To be on the move, to be hypnotised by passing landscapes and take time in this fast-forward era to do nothing for a while but relax and think.

Whenever I want to unwind the mind, read a book or stare at scenery, I go on a train journey. All that clickety-clack and movement onwards excites, yet strangely soothes. I’m lulled into another state of being. Long train journeys encourage mindfulness. You live in the moment, look out the window, think interesting thoughts, and have nothing to worry about.

Why stare at a screen when you can watch the world go by?

As for destination, nowhere is quite as zen as the Australian outback. All that big blue sky and orange emptiness. Your soul surrenders to the outback’s immensity, helped along by a non-existent internet and phone connections. Why stare at a small screen? The grand sweep of an entire continent goes bustling by.

You might think there’s nothing in the outback, but every something captures your attention. A tumbledown tin shed. A bonsai-twisted tree. Kangaroos bouncing against a sunset. Every now and then you slip past an improbable town – fibro cottages, Hills Hoists – and wonder about people’s lives there.

No rough drives, eye-squinting sun or dust on a train journey. On the Indian Pacific between Sydney and Perth recently my cabin was a zen capsule of comfort and minimalism. I could stretch out my legs and watch the Blue Mountains and Flinders Ranges and Nullarbor go effortlessly by.

Indian Pacific glides past Lake Hart in South Australia.Credit: Journey Beyond

Then I was cocooned in my doona. Lifting the blind up in the night was a where-are-we treat of moonlit hills, a sparkle of stars, a slash of sunrise as we arrived in Broken Hill. The earth was orange: we could have been on Mars.

Broken Hill was a destination for an off-train experience, yet I found guilty pleasure in boarding again, knowing I’d nothing to do for the rest of the day. The Flinders Ranges were a gorgeous symphony in red and purple. Over dinner of grilled swordfish and banoffee pie, green pastures and canola fields took over. Why wouldn’t I be feeling relaxed?

The vibe of The Ghan between Adelaide and Darwin a few years ago was different. The landscapes were redder and rawer. Australia rolled past: the Finke River a wide ribbon of sand, then stony escarpments and straggling gum trees. Along the Hugh River, big white-trunked eucalyptus seemed hungry for water. Then the train slipped through a gap in the MacDonnell Ranges and into Alice Springs.

On a train journey, the train becomes your whole world for a few days. The cabin, the lounge, the dining car. It’s an escape from reality. The train dawdles along. Fellow guests chat, then stare out the window in contemplation. It’s okay to be silent. We don’t often have the luxury of silent staring. Flocks of cockatoos shriek beyond the window, but you feel as if everyone’s mind has been mellowed.

Australia’s most zen moment is the world’s longest stretch of straight track, 478 kilometres across the Nullarbor on the Indian Pacific. Relieved of the tedium of driving, this flat nothingness is magnificent: a beaten-down, copper-coloured landscape silvered with scrub that vanishes to the horizon and makes me feel exhilaratingly insignificant over my lunchtime shoulder of lamb.

How can you worry about your trivial concerns when confronted by a landscape like this? Bothers float away with the galleon-sized clouds that scud across an ocean of sky.

Dinner under the stars… Rawlinna sheep station.Credit: Journey Beyond

The Indian Pacific stops for an evening on the western Nullarbor, on vast sheep station Rawlinna. The passengers clamber off for drinks after dark. A bonfire crackles, a musician sings mournful country songs. Beyond the rim of electric light, the saltbush plain fades into the dark, and above, the billion stars of outback Australia wink.

THE DETAILS

Rail

Journey Beyond’s four-day Indian Pacific journey between Sydney and Perth departs Wednesdays with off-train experiences at Broken Hill, Adelaide and the Nullarbor. Between Perth and Sydney departures are on Sundays, with off-train experiences at Kalgoorlie, the Nullarbor, Adelaide and the Blue Mountains. From $2430pp including food, drinks and off-train excursions. See journeybeyondrail.com.au

The writer was a guest of Journey Beyond.