The roller-coaster ride

John Rozentals takes a roller-coaster ride across the flattest place on earth …

It’s about 7.30am and I’ve just enjoyed the proverbial hearty breakfast on board the Indian Pacific as it heads across the Nullarbor on its 13th annual Christmas journey.

Also on board are Australian singer Ricki Lee Coulter and guitarist Luke O’Dea, who have the task of playing brief concerts on platforms and sidings between Sydney and Perth.

They’ve already played Bathurst and Broken Hill, but what’s ahead at Watson, a no-horse siding literally hundreds of kilometres from anywhere, is about to gob-smack them and a normally blasé media contingent.

I’d like to say we saw it as we came round the bend, but there are no bends in this part of the world. Scattered around the siding are at least 50 vehicles and a couple of hundred people, mostly indigenous children from the Yalata and Oak Valley communities in South Australia’s remote Maralinga district, right in the centre of our own atomic horror story.

Many have come more than 500 kilometres and camped overnight around an old armchair reserved as a throne for their queen for the morning. For me, disembarking the train and wandering though the crowd marks a very special moment.

And so too, obviously, for Coulter and O’Dea — unmiked, mobbed and right at the top of their game as they work through a smattering of Coulter’s repertoire and lead the kids in a couple of Christmas standards to lure Santa Claus off the train.

Coulter, here as elsewhere, is magnificent — just so interested and giving and embracing, chatting to all without ever talking down to anyone.

It provides one of life’s memorable experiences but it’s a double-edged moment. We’re rejoining the train and heading back to a largely pampered, relatively idyllic existence. For the kids running beside the train, waving goodbye to us, the health, social and economic difficulties are palpable. Their road ahead is fraught, unless we can take some genuine steps to fill at least the deepest pot-holes.

Images: John Rozentals (except for pic of Ricki Lee Coulter and Santa in front of Indian Pacific — Quentin Jones).

Disclosure: John Rozentals travelled as a guest of Great Southern Rail.