Being a new resident to New South Wales (NSW), the Australian state where Europeans first settled, has been an experience even after a few weeks. The first Sunday in August I took an all day trip to the capital, Sydney. I was hoping to see a railway exhibit my wife mentioned to me when she went to Sydney to get a train back to Victoria so she could get our belonging packed in order to move the whole family to our new location.

From our new house, it is a 10 minute car trip to the nearest train station.

The train ride was on an electric train somewhat similar looking to some of the Sydney suburban electric trains, which CityRail calls an Intercity train. I always imagined a NSW Intercity train to have a reasonable average speed, say 80 kph (50 miles per hour) or more. This was partly because I had been on a New South Wales Intercity train about 20 yeas ago, and I remember it being a very speedy trip, but that was on a higher speed line. In reality the line I travelled along recently has an average speed of about 60 kph (about 45 mph) over the 3 hour journey. Part of the reason is that the rail line travels through some spectacular country, with the sea on one side, and a rocky mountain range on the other, and quite a lot of stations serving a large urban area outside Sydney. The track has many curves, spectacular forest scenery, and views out to sea that are breathtaking. When my wife got a train along the same line a week before she told me that there was a spectacular electrical storm as she went through the most curvy section of the line.

When we got close to Sydney Central station, I noticed two large planes, I think one was a Boeing 747. It was making an approach to Sydney Airport, and it passed almost overhead. I thought I would hear a deep rumble or the whine of jet engines as it passed over, but the train must have had extremely good sound proofing, because I didn't hear anything except the air conditioning unit in the train!

Planned trips include to the Blue Mountains and the Lithgow Zig Zag, the Southern Highlands, and even north to Newcastle and the Hunter Valley. Only time will tell whether those plans come to fruition.