Explore "A Backblocker's Pleasure Trip" by Edward S. Sorenson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
At certain seasons our several Governments combine to run excursion trains from Broken Hill to Sydney (and vice-versa), via Adelaide and Melbourne. I sampled the excursion at the time the Duke of York was visiting Australia. A lot of people were going east then to see Royalty. I had no appointment with him myself; in fact, I wasn't going down to see the Duke at all--nor even the Duchess. The prolonged drought of that period, with its heat and flies and thirst and duststorms, was getting monotonous, and the cheap excursion decided me that I wanted a change of climate.
Being at Tibooburra, 200 miles from the railway station, I had to start early to catch the express. I started three weeks before hand. This was to allow time to recover from the awful coach trip before beginning the long train journey.