Considered one of "Australia's Great Train Journeys," Indian-Pacific is named as such because it starts in Perth (on the Indian Ocean) and ends in Sydney (on the Pacific Ocean). I took the train only to Adelaide, because I wanted to see the Great Ocean Road, which is between Adelaide and Melbourne. The train ride was novel for about the first 2 hours, and then I got pretty restless for the last 40 hours or so. I was in whats called the Red Kangaroo Class Daynighter seat, which is basically just a normal seat found in any old train, except that I was expected to sleep for 2 nights in the thing. It was possible to upgrade to beds in the Red Kangaroo Class, and sleeper cabins in the Gold Kangaroo Class for the bargain price of $400 - $700. Geez. I could have easily flown for that much...

Luckily, one of the guys from my trip down from Broome was also on the train so at least we kept each other company. Mads (pronounced like "Mess") from Denmark, and I played about a hundred games of cards, U.S. vs. Denmark, but we stopped keeping track of the score after we got into the double digits. Other than playing cards, I mostly just sat, read, slept, or ate junk food in the dining car. There were actually little cubicle showers on board, and I managed to successfully shower without falling out. :) The train passed a few small towns, if you can call them that. Cook, for example, with a population of 2, is inhabited by a couple that lives there basically to help with the trains. They refill water, provide a place for drivers to stay the night to rest, and run the little souvenir shop whose only shoppers are train passengers. We stopped there for about 15 minutes just to get some fresh air and walk around checking out the funny signs about how desolate Cook is. The terrain from Perth to Adelaide was pretty much the same the whole way, flat, sometimes there were trees, but mostly it was just flat. When I got to Adelaide, I spent a few days on the 8th floor the Parkside Hotel, which had a nice view over the city.