Australia’s 4,000km-long Indian Pacific train route has long topped my bucket list, but with the four-day journey across the country from Perth to Sydney costing from A$3,090 (£1,600) to A$20,990 (£10,890) for the most expensive suite, I won’t be ticking it off any time soon.
Step in “The Prospector”, a comparatively short (by Australian standards) seven-hour train ride eastwards from Perth to Kalgoorlie, Australia’s largest Outback city. For 653km, The Prospector traverses the same tracks and scenery as the Indian Pacific, but with tickets costing as little as A$100 (£52) each way, this was an Outback journey I could afford.
Kalgoorlie, a dusty “city” of 30,000 people, was founded in 1893 when a trio of Irish prospectors sparked a gold rush. Its name is derived from the indigenous Wangkatha word loosely meaning “place of silky pears”, and it boomed on top of one of the world’s richest seams of gold.
Shorts
By 1897, railway tracks extended from Perth to Kalgoorlie. Today, The Prospector, a daily service launched in 1971, remembers the gold rush pioneers who braved the same route eastwards in search of fortunes.
