Season Six of The Great Southern travels from Adelaide to Brisbane over 3 days and 2 nights and departs from the Adelaide Parklands Terminal on a Friday. The journey includes three off-train experiences, including the Grampians Experience, the Canberra Icons and Coffs Harbour. On its way back from Brisbane to Adelaide, over 4 days and 3 nights, the experiences include Dinner at Coffs Harbour, a choice between Hunter Valley / Newcastle / Port Stephens Experiences and a Melbourne Experience.
These experiences are all included in the fare that guests pay for their bookings. (There are some helicopter flights that are not included in the fare and must be paid for additionally.)
This was my first time aboard The Great Southern and I was excited about spending so many days on the train, as well as about the two off-train experiences that I would be accompanying guests on.
Above, photographs from the viewpoint that is part of the Views For Miles Off-Train Experience on the Great Southern at The Grampians.
We had an excellent tour guide in Ash, who kept the guests entertained with an insane amount of trivia and knowledge about the Grampians. Including why some of the trees were pink. It was because of the color of the fire-retardant used to put out the fires. This particular fire-retardant contains minerals and growth accelerant for the plants and trees, so when the next rains happen, the soil will be further enriched.
The Crew got an overnight break at Brisbane at the Mantra hotel at Southbank. The hotel has a small strip pool, which is salted in addition to chlorinated and while most of my laps were those of a flailing fish, I managed to exhaust myself even more for an excellent night’s sleep. I’m still surprised by the differences in the hospitality service that I’m used to from India vs the hospitality service levels in Australia. This hotel, for example, didn’t provide slippers to guests, which I wasn’t aware of beforehand. I don’t think I know of a single hotel in India that doesn’t provide slippers! Oh well, so much to learn!
The breakfast next morning was GREAT, along with some excellent coffee. We boarded guests at Acacia Ridge and left Brisbane to begin some Off Train Experiences and to finally head into Adelaide over the next couple of nights.
Port Stephens was an absolute DELIGHT. The water in the bay was a bit muddy due to the unprecedented floods that the region had faced due to heavy rainfall, but that did nothing to dampen the spirits of everyone aboard the Osprey Catamaran.
I got to see Dolphins in real life for the first time in my life!
Special shout out to the coach driver David, who has previously worked with NASA in Antarctica on their stratospheric balloons project for over 30 years! He also builds his bikes and cars and was an absolute delight to chat with. And I have to mention James and Michelle aboard The Osprey who were super-professional and took lovely care of all the guests. James made sure that the catamaran’s pitching and rolling was as gentle as possible.
A gorgeous day at the golf course with an incredible lunch and live music with guests.
The Crew got a bit of off-train time at Inverleigh, Victoria, which has this cute children’s park with a skating rink AND a swing set, which is where I spent most of time, eating a non-alcoholic affogato out of a takeaway cup and swinging away into the sunshine, before we headed back into Adelaide.
This was also my first time spending 7 nights on train and one of the effects of that was that once I got back on firm ground in Adelaide, I could still feel the motion of the train for a couple of days. This is one of the most interesting jobs that I have ever taken on in my life, so far. New challenges and new ways to get to know myself better.
The train was a lot more temperamental in terms of movement on the terrain that it covers on this journey.
As always, the photographs above have been shot on the Nikon D810 with a 24-70mm F2.8 lens, as well as on the Pixel 9 Pro XL. All post-production was done in Adobe Lightroom.
I’ve also previously shared my first trip on the Indian Pacific on this blog and hope to continue to share from upcoming trips. As I get more used to the work, I’m hoping I will have more time to whip out my Nikon and capture the Australian landscape.
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