Train trip: they said the Nullarbor was dull - I found the soul of Australia instead

If only he'd gone on the Indian Pacific railway from Perth to Sydney, he would have felt differently. There's something both hypnotic and relaxing about sitting in a train carriage and gazing out at the immense Nullarbor wilderness as it passes by for more than a thousand kilometres of seemingly eternal flatness. Rather than boring, it is awesome in its magnificent red vastness. Just sit and gaze, and time passes.

Winnie the Pooh said: "Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits." Winnie would enjoy the Nullarbor Plain and the rest of the Indian Pacific ocean-to-ocean adventure.

The luxury of cabins with showers was not Eyre's way. But a bar and restaurant car with good, chilled beer and wine add up to a comfortable way of traversing a cross-section of southern Australia from the scrub in the west to the dusty red earth in the centre to the greenery of the east. It gives you a sense of the whole country, from scorched earth to green pasture.

The 641-metre train trundles along, in a straight line for 478 kilometres of the Nullarbor and doubling back on itself as the line winds through the Blue Mountains. What a way to see the contrasts of the continent of Australia! So, as the world gets faster, slow travel is the way to go.

The journey is a good chance for a digital detox. One of its great benefits is that there are vast areas without phone coverage. So, if you and your phone are normally glued together, the journey offers a chance to unhook and reflect and observe - and even, think of this, talk to other passengers.

The 27-carriage train pulled by two locomotives leaves Perth on a Saturday evening and arrives at Sydney Central Station on Wednesday. The line is single track for most of the way but with passing loops (as railway people call them), so the passenger train occasionally stops to let a freight train through. Freight has precedence.

There are also stops at Kalgoorlie, Adelaide, Broken Hill, and Mount Victoria and Katoomba in the Blue Mountains where passengers are met by buses for excursions. All of these stops are worthwhile, albeit in different ways. Some are jaw-dropping and spectacular and some are plain interesting.

The first, the Super Pit gold mine in Kalgoorlie-Boulder on the Sunday, is stupendous. At 3.5 kilometres long by 1.5 kilometres wide and 600 metres deep, the hole in the ground is awesome in its hugeness. The trucks weighing 375 tonnes when loaded seem like no more than ants crawling up and down the slopes.

On the Monday, the big stop is in the evening in Adelaide, with a bus trip to the Seppeltsfield winery in the Barossa. There's a tasting there, accompanied by delicacies like smoked mushrooms and smoked popcorn (!) from the winery's own smokery. Then comes a sumptuous dinner, accompanied by a Seppeltsfield red and a white followed by port wine.

Tuesday sees the train in Broken Hill, technically in NSW but still on South Australia time. Different bus tours are undertaken, from the railway museum to meet drag queen Shelita Buffet. She is extravagant and flamboyant and a totem for Broken Hill as anything but a gruff, macho mining town. The Palace Hotel in Broken Hill starred in 1994 in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Shelita Buffet keeps the torch burning.

On the final day, the big stop is in the Blue Mountains where buses take passengers on different tours demanding differing states of physical exertion. The most strenuous is a three-kilometre walk overlooking the jaw-dropping landscape. It is a walk and not a trek - you need stout shoes and reasonable fitness but the paths are paved - and the views are stunning.

There is a lot of eating to be done on the trip - three meals a day in the restaurant cars, each as filling as you choose to make it - but the food is of a high standard and resistance is difficult.

The train has different grades (what used to be called classes), from Gold up to Gold Premium to Platinum and, from next year, the ultimate luxury of Aurora and Australis. Each step up in standard gives you more space in your cabin and its adjoining toilet and shower. Gold has bunks but Platinum has a flat double bed. The wines are finer and the courses more numerous in Platinum. In Gold, the shower is narrow but usable. In Platinum, the shower is bigger than the one in Gold. In both, the water is hot, strong and ample. At the Seppeltsfield winery, Platinum gets 100-year-old Tawny while Gold gets 10-year-old. Both are lovely.

The company says that the Australis or Aurora suites will have "premium inclusions, such as Champagne Bollinger La Grande Année, a curated private bar, premium Jurlique amenities, a full bedroom with luxurious bed linen and large en suite".

Prices go up as the luxury gets more luxurious. They also depend on the time of year and on whether you travel for four nights west to east or three nights east to west. The trip is organised with military precision: it has to fit into the railway system. Buses need to meet it at exactly the right minute.

This exact schedule means that there's an awful lot of work going on behind the scenes. When passengers go to breakfast, staff move into the cabins to clear away bed linen and turn a bedroom into a lounge. When passengers go to dinner, staff move in and turn the lounge back into a bedroom.

Sociability is desirable but not compulsory. In Gold, diners share tables, though there are ways of minimising this if sociability is not in your genes. The trip is a bit like a cruise on wheels - there are other people and, if you like people, that is one of the bonuses. If you don't, perhaps it's best avoided.

And it's a train, and trains bump and grind along - it's part of their charm. If you need unruffled silence to sleep, stay away.

Dining can be a bit like speed dating. I found that I really liked some people I met who came from very different backgrounds to my own. I enjoyed their company. It sounds pretentious but the thing I liked most about the experience was being reminded that people don't keep to stereotypes. They surprise - thank goodness.

The writer was a guest of Journey Beyond