Explore Australia’s Southeastern Coast on the Great Southern Train Ride

Australia is a vast and fascinating country. There is so much to see along Australia’s southeastern coast. And one of the best ways to see it is aboard a luxury rail journey. Operated by Journey Beyond, the Great Southern train travels from Brisbane to Adelaide on a four-day, two-night relaxing railway journey. The train ride takes you on a luxury journey of food, wine, culture, history, art, and scenery designed as an epicurean summer adventure. World-class service provides guests with a mixture of on-train comforts and off-train excursions.

As stunning landscapes of New South Wales glide by your picture window, you see spectacular coastal and island scenery that this great train takes you through. It allows you to see the country in a way that traveling by airplane cannot provide.

Guests enjoy a beachside dining experience at a stopover in Coffs Harbor. Other off-train excursions include the historic Hunter Valley, where guests can taste the wines of this iconic region. Beautiful Port Stephens, regional Victoria, and urban Melbourne are all stops before you roll into your destination of Adelaide, one of the world’s great wine capitals.

While on this 2,885-kilometer hop, guests can choose from a creative menu showcasing premium local food and wines by day and, at night, rest peacefully in beautifully appointed cabin accommodations.

The Journey Begins

Every Journey Beyond train ride begins with a party, and the Great Southern is no exception. Because the Great Southern departs from the Brisbane Freight Terminal, the largest of its kind in Queensland, Journey Beyond holds the kickoff party in town. Hosted at the Hanworth House in east Brisbane, an iconic 155-year-old home, we’re excited to start our adventure.

Our attentive hosts greet us with sparkling wine when we arrive on a clear summer morning. The sound of clinking glasses fills the air as we and our fellow passengers toast the adventure we’re about to begin. Guests dine on confections and canapes under tented awnings. Chairs and tables across the lawn provide comfortable seating where we sit and listen to the musicians playing for the crowd.

Our excitement mounts as we board our buses for the ride to the train terminal. Soon, we’ll begin our journey on the Great Southern Railway, a trip we’ve dreamt of for months.

Arriving at the Train Station

An image of a giant, white kangaroo in mid-hop painted on the side of two mammoth, orange-colored locomotive engines reminds us that we’re in the “Land Down Under.”

Twenty-eight carriages stretch behind the engines, filled with Platinum level cabins, Gold level cabins, restaurants, lounges, and crew quarters.

When the conductor calls, “All aboard,” we head to our carriage and find the room we’ll call home for the next few days.

Accommodations on the Great Southern Train

The Great Southern Train is a luxurious experience with comfortable cabins, fine dining, and exceptional service. There are three levels of service in the Great Southern: Platinum, Gold Premium, and Gold. The price includes all meals, drinks, and excursions.

Platinum service is the most luxurious, offering larger cabins, an exclusive dining carriage, and access to the private Platinum Lounge. Gold Premium service cabins are also spacious and comfortable, with a private ensuite. This level provides guests access to the Gold Premium Lounge and Gold Premium dining car, priority check-in, tour preferencing, and more.

Gold service cabins have a private ensuite and access to the Queen Adelaide Restaurant and Outback Explorer Lounge. All cabins are comfortable and spacious enough to spend downtime relaxing or reading. They are air-conditioned, have panoramic windows, and include a bed that converts to a comfortable lounge during the day.

Outback Explorer Lounge

We stow our luggage in our cabin and head to the Outback Explorer Lounge before lunch, where the journey really begins. Making new friends comes quickly in the narrow but comfortable seating on each side of the lounge. The Great Southern names its bar lounges after famous Australian outback explorers.

Ours was named after the heroic pioneers Sir Augustus Gregory (1819 – 1905) and Francis Gregory (1821 – 1888). The brothers worked for the government survey office and led expeditions to Western Australia.

The wine served aboard the train comes from famous wine regions across Australia. A few choices are a dry Riesling from Eden Valley, a cool-climate Chardonnay from Coonawarra, and a hearty Shiraz Cabernet blend from McLaren Vale.

We order a Serafino Sauvignon Blanc from Adelaide Hills and settle in the lounge. With a quick jolt, the train pulls slowly out of the station, gradually gaining speed past well-kept residential suburbs and the lush green hills outside Brisbane. And we’re on our way to the coast and our first stop in Coffs Harbor.

Queen Adelaide Restaurant

The art deco style of the Queen Adelaide Restaurant reflects the golden era and romance of rail travel. Named after the monarch who was the consort of King William IV in 1836 when settlers arrived in South Australia, the restaurant serves a wide choice of culinary options.

Tables covered in white linen tablecloths are next to large windows where the rugged beauty of southeastern Australia acts as the perfect backdrop for our culinary adventure. Because each table seats four passengers, we meet different people at every meal. It’s so fascinating to share a meal and conversation with someone you just met from other parts of Australia and even other countries.

Although the dining company may be interesting, a great joy of travel for us lies in sampling the fresh fare and excellent cuisine. Journey Beyond chefs use locally sourced ingredients to create authentic regional dishes on each itinerary. A thoughtful wine list enhances your meal, especially with handpicked regional selections and onboard tastings that showcase Australia’s quintessential regional varietals.

The changing menu features intercontinental and Australian cuisine. It offers mouth-watering dishes such as grilled Atlantic salmon with pumpkin, fragrant summer vegetable curry, grilled lamb with pesto, confit duck leg, and grilled tropical mango chicken salad on rice noodles.

Every morning, a selection of hot breakfast items is available. Sumptuous dishes like spinach and Persian feta frittata, avocado on sweet potato with grilled halloumi, or French toast are hard to resist. Hungry passengers can even order a full breakfast with grilled eye bacon, sausage, wilted spinach, baked beans, and potato rosti.

Off-train Excursions

Day One

Our first off-train excursion takes us to Charlesworth Bay in Coffs Harbor. This popular vacation destination has a string of fabulous beaches. Equally popular with families and backpackers, the town offers plenty of water-based activities, action sports, and wildlife encounters. It’s also known for its cultural beacon, a giant statue known as the “Big Banana,” a tribute to its early days of banana plantations.

We dine outside beachside under the stars at the Pacific Bay Resort. The specially prepared menu starts with Coffs Coast King prawns and Sydney Rock oysters. Our mains include BBQ local Black Angus eye fillet, locally caught BBQ Barramundi, Fried Dorrigo potatoes, and Greek salad. Dessert consists of a lovely display of blueberry tarts, a board of fresh fruit, cheese, and crackers and Banoffee pie, a pie made with toffee, bananas, and cream.

Fine wines, all from New South Wales, complement the meal. We are entertained like royalty by a live band playing jazz and classic favorites.

Day Two

Just north of Newcastle, the train stops at the sheltered harbor of Port Stephens. It boasts nearly deserted beaches, national parks, and the largest shifting sand dune system in the Southern Hemisphere. The main marine center, Nelson Bay, is home to both a fishing fleet and an armada of tourist vessels, the latter trading on the town’s status as the dolphin capital of Australia.

On day two, guests can tour nearby Newcastle, visit Hunter Valley for wine tasting, ride dune buggies in the dunes, or take a sea cruise in Port Stephens.

We opted for a sea cruise around the harbor. From the moment we leave the marina, our ship’s captain begins to narrate the position of the dolphin pods he has already sighted. We spot pods of up to 40 or 50 dolphins, the most the captain has seen in a long time.

Already dazzled by the turquoise waters and stunning coastline, we rush to the rails of the boat, alternating from starboard to port to take photos of dolphins gliding gracefully alongside the ship, occasionally adults splashing their tails in the sea to remind young ones to keep in stride with the pace of the passing pod.

We retreat to the Nelson Bay Golf Club for lunch in the afternoon. Starters include salt and pepper squid with Asian salad and Moroccan lamb skewers. Mains include peppered beef filets, smashed potatoes, onion rings, and chicken supreme with slow-roasted tomato. A lovely green salad with cucumbers, capsicum, onions, carrots, and red lettuce makes for a delicious side dish. Dessert includes warm apple and almond tarts, and New York baked cheesecake with mixed berry compote.

Day Three

Before reaching Adelaide on the afternoon of the third day, we select another off-train excursion in Victoria’s high country, well-known for its excellent food and wine. We are comfortably bused to the Moorabool Valley and arrive at the beautiful Clyde Park Vineyard, cellar door, and bistro set among the rolling hills. Here, we enjoy a long lunch of roast lamb, Peking duck, Kahlúa pork-covered flatbread, pumpkin flatbread, and mushroom frittata. We sample cool-climate wines while being ceremoniously entertained by two musicians in the cavernous barrel room of the Clyde Park facility.

The meal concludes with a work of art dessert – a 10-foot-long pavlova covered in fruit and whipped cream.

Travel Comparison

Unlike modern-day air travel, which insulates and buckles us up separate from one another for transport, a transcontinental train still holds the promise of romance, not just in the nostalgia for a slower time, but because of the interaction with strangers you meet along the way both on and off the train. For us, a train isn’t a vehicle like a Boeing 787, but it’s a place. It’s part of the countryside like a rolling village that doesn’t remove you from the passing landscape or your fellow passengers like an airplane does.

Fortunately, we have discovered that with every rail journey we have taken with Journey Beyond, the Indian Pacific, the Ghan, and the Great Southern, each is full of opportunities for making unforgettable memories. And when the ride includes every luxury and every detail, you’ll have nothing to concern yourself with except the moment’s enjoyment.

For us, a ride on the Great Southern was no exception. It offers superb amenities, excellent cuisine, an informal ambiance among fellow travelers, and genuine off-train excursions. The friendly welcome and attention to service excellence the Journey Beyond crew provides lets you know you’ve discovered something special on board.

The leisurely pace of a railroad journey invites conversations and camaraderie with like-minded travelers who share in your joy of discovery. And you find, as we have, that the memories made on your train journey are the finest souvenirs you’ll take home.