The Indian Pacific slows on its approach to Broken Hill. With some fellow passengers, you've decided to have a quick look around this artificial oasis. The air is clean and crisp, slightly cooler than you would have expected. But then, that seems so right for somewhere so surreal and isolated. Rich mineral deposits nourish this town. There is no well of spring water beneath the green parks and colourful gardens. Instead, there are rich veins of silver, lead and zinc.

You are now heading for Condoblin... the track straightens and the landscape becomes less nurturing: the odd tree punctuates the scenery but in the darkness it's hard to see even that. Night falls and you dine under a sky studded with thousands of stars... after dinner you enjoy a nightcap in the lounge.. then turn in for the night.

You pass Orange during the night with it's soil red and fertile - spewed forth from a now extinct volcano - it sustains endless paddocks of lambs, pigs and cattle with its fodder crops...
Rising early you see the Blue Mountains - sheer cliffs dropping off into steep canyons, the early morning haze hovering above the eucalyptus forests... Blaney, Bathhurst, Lithgow, Katoomba... Australia's country towns pass by and the country gives way to the fringes of Sydney suburbia.