An imposing Indian Pacific diesel-electric locomotive is a great introduction to the start of one of the longest train journeys in the world.
The train, done out in gleaming blue and yellow livery with the image of a wedge-tailed eagle emblazoned across the nose, comprises 500 metres of silver carriages at East Perth's Rail Terminal.
Ocean to ocean from Perth in Western Australia, crossing a 4 352km swath of the southern outback of this vast continent before arriving in far-off Sydney on the Pacific coast, this was one of the greatest train rides I have had the privilege of experiencing.
Run by Great Southern Rail, a private company, the Indian Pacific, or IP as it is known, has only one rival in terms of distance travelled, the Trans-Siberian railway.
Great Southern Rail also operates The Ghan between its Adelaide headquarters and Darwin in the Northern Territory, and the Overlander between Adelaide and Melbourne.
After a quick check-in, I was shown by the IP train manager to a Gold Service cabin complete with en-suite shower.
At 11.55am, the IP glided out through rain-drenched suburbs and into the countryside. Picking up speed, we passed bush-covered hills, a pair of hikers walking next to the track, and rivulets running down the Avon valley. Then we entered flat canola and winter wheat lands, broken by thickets of eucalyptus and salt pans with small tin-roofed settlements parallel with the Perth-Kalgoorlie road.
That night we pulled into gold mining Kalgoorlie for water replenishment. A whistle stop tour of Kalgoorlie included a peep over the edge of the floodlit Super Pit open-cast mine, a look at the celebrated Victorian architecture along a chilly and deserted Hannan Street and, finally, for some unknown reason, three brothels operating near the police station.
Earlier, I joined my fellow travellers in the lounge car for champagne and an introduction by Adrian, our genial and efficient Gold Class manager, to the hospitality staff and fellow guests, which included a rundown of the vital statistics of life aboard the train.
All 60 fellow guests in the Gold Class were Australians from the eastern states, who had either flown west to take the train ride or were ending a holiday on the west coast - hence 18 accompanying vehicles had been loaded on a motorail behind the guards' van.
On board, Australian informality ruled. Placed in the "Swagman's Lunch" and "Moonlight dinner" group, I fell in with sheep and wheat farmers from New South Wales, a retired Queensland stock farmer and his wife, and a young Sydneysider diagnosed with a perforated eardrum who was not allowed to fly home.
Australians don't need icebreakers, and a convivial spirit developed in the lounge bar.
Among our fellow passengers was a man with a fine tenor voice who sang a range of ballads, while the inner man was satisfied by the two gourmet chefs who presided over a veritable feast of nouvelle cuisine meals.
Coffee and tea were available throughout the journey in each carriage or in the lounge.
In my cabin the bed was made up and outside the rain had stopped, the temperature was below zero and a watery moon illuminated the semi desert landscape.
The Perth-Adelaide line is a single track and during the night there were several stops as the IP moved to sidings to allow west- and eastbound freight trains to thunder past.
As a scarlet dawn broke, salmon gumtrees flickered past the carriage windows, and one needed to reflect that ahead lay a 2 000km stretch of wilderness.
We were entering the centre stage of our journey, the Nullarbor Plain, covering a surface area of 250 000km2.
This stony desert has been described as one of the most remarkable landscapes on Earth.
The vast limestone plateau straddles Western and South Australia and the IP travelled from dawn to dusk across the breadth of the dry, treeless expanse, with its ankle-high cover of salt and blue bush.
From the carriage windows we spotted feral camels bobbing along the horizon, while a lucky few saw emus and a solitary dingo.
But for the rest the scene was an unremitting 360-degree horizon and not a kangaroo in sight.
The line also has the distinction of being the longest straight stretch of railroad in the world - 478km, passing abandoned stations from the days of coal-fired locomotives, named after long forgotten politicians and even one after a celebrated racehorse. (There must be a lesson in this.)
Occasionally tracks crossed the line to a mine, or sheep station and later to a meteorology station and emergency runway.
In the afternoon, with the winter temperature hovering at a bracing 17 degrees, the IP stopped at Cook, to change drivers, replenish water and allow us out of our double-glazed and sealed environment to stretch our legs.
At its height, Cook had a 300-strong population to service the transcontinental trains - with a flying doctor, weather station, stores, hospital and school.
The buildings, many derelict, are still there, but its population is now down to four - to feed and shelter the relief crews. Cook is about as remote as it gets.
Leaving the Nullarbor at night, the IP did a slight kink to the right, coming off the straight track with the view from the cabin window quickly changing to sandy malee shrub desert.
We passed an isolated railway maintenance camp with the crew warming themselves around a coal fire.
It is worth remembering that when the Trans Australian line was completed with pick and shovel in 1917, it was the longest railway ever built as a single project in Australia
Day three, before Adelaide was awake, we glided into the new Parklands Terminal where some passengers disembarked, crews changed, new passengers came on board and soon we were heading north-east through the fertile Barossa valley, a landscape of vegetables, wheat and vineyards.
Soon after cresting a range of low hills, the IP crossed its third time zone of the journey into outback New South Wales, a contrasting moonscape of rocky outcrop semi-desert.
Late afternoon had the IP in the silver mining centre of Broken Hill, with another short whistle-stop tour to admire the town's heritage and hostelries or watering holes, which featured in Mad Max and Priscilla Queen of the Desert.
That final night I watched from my cabin window as desert changed to shadowy pastoral country, eucalyptus, stock fences and small villages and red blinking lights signalling level crossings.
We awoke to find the IP travelling through misty towns remembered faintly from schoolboy geography lessons, Bathurst, Orange, and Lithgow.
We then crossed the Blue Mountains at their highest point and descended through spectacular valley views between tunnels and steep gradients emerging into suburban commuter belt stations, and finally arrived on schedule at Sydney's Central Station - the end of a memorable train journey across a vast continent.
The writer travelled Gold Service on the Indian Pacific.
For further information including reservations and prices of Great Southern Rail's train journeys on The Ghan, Indian Pacific and The Overland, log on to their website www.gsr.com.au