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Being vision impaired hasn’t stopped Mel Stephens from experiencing every Journey Beyond rail trip. Here she describes what it is that makes the Indian Pacific, The Ghan, the Great Southern and The Overland – or the Big Girls as she calls them – so special.
WORDS Mel Stephens as told to Tess Durack
In 1991, my parents went on a six-week adventure that included a trip on The Ghan (and getting married!). They loved it, and years later, when I was six, they took me on The Ghan, then we flew to Perth (Boorloo) and got the Indian Pacific back home. I’d been on other trains before but that was my first trip on what I like to call the Big Girls, and I was hooked.
Both my parents are vision impaired and I am blind too. Because we live in country Victoria, trains have always been such an important part of our lives, taking us to our visit family and friends in Adelaide (tarntanya), Melbourne (Naarm) and the Victorian high country. When I was three, if you asked me where I lived, I’d say on a train. I’d take The Overland from Melbourne to Adelaide instead of a plane any day. Her bigger sisters get more publicity, but I’d be devastated if The Overland ever stopped.
When people ask me what I love about the Big Girls, I can only reply that I love them because they are trains. I love the thing itself – the smell, the movement, the sounds, their power and enormity. Those locos are strong little buggers – I just love that one of those can pull all 26-odd carriages of the Indian Pacific and only needs an assistant loco when it’s doing the mountains outside Sydney (Warrane). For me, it’s less about getting off for the day tours and more about just going. And that’s why the Indian Pacific is probably my favourite – it just goes and goes.
In 2008 when I was 14, I still had a small amount of vision. So my trip on the Indian Pacific that year was the last one I had some kind of visual experience of. Now I still like to sit by the window and imagine what might be outside. There are also apps that can take a picture and then describe what’s outside. And sometimes I’ve made friends with other passengers who tell me what the landscape is like or describe the colours of the sunset. But honestly, if I didn’t have those descriptions, I wouldn’t really mind. My favourite experience of the landscape was when it rained in Cook out on the Nullarbor. I never thought I’d get to experience that. It’s one of the most amazing places I’ve been to.
Just before I turned twenty, I thought, you know what, it’s time to try a solo trip. So I booked my flights, accommodation and trip on the Indian Pacific by myself with my own money and it was fantastic. My dog at that time was Darcy and that was the trip I saw the rain in Cook. Darcy was also with me when I took my best friend with me on a trip. But that may have been a bit over-ambitious! My friend is also vision impaired and cerebral palsy so there was me, pushing her in a wheelchair while she balanced our two backpacks and her crutches on her lap. And we took three trains in three days – the XPT to Sydney, the Indian Pacific to Adelaide, and then The Overland back home. It was a palaver, but we had fun!
My dog now is Penelope and the number one question I get asked by people on the trains is “How does your dog go to the toilet?” I can understand their curiosity! Fortunately, I can arrange for the staff to take her off at various points. They let me know the schedule of stops (the trains stop for all kinds of reasons and more often than to just let passengers off) and we figure out what will work with her routine. Sometimes it will be scheduled to stop in the middle of the night and one of the staff will come and get her from my cabin while I sleep. When we’re in the dining carriage and a staff member takes her off to the toilet and the passengers see her outside, I hear them all go “Oh there she goes! Look, the dog is getting off!” It’s very funny. Sometimes the dog even gets involved with whatever activity is happening – changing the points or filling up the water. It’s good for them to have a change of scene too. And how many dogs get to go to the toilet in the middle of the Nullarbor Plain (Oondiri)?
THE STORYTELLER
Mel Stephens has been a Journey Beyond Rail enthusiast since she was a girl, and being vision impaired hasn’t stopped her from experiencing every trip the trains have to offer. “When I was three, if you asked me where I lived, I’d say on a train.”
“And sometimes I’ve made friends with other passengers who tell me what the landscape is like or describe the colours of the sunset.”
It’s important that when I’m on the train with Penelope, I treat it like home. By that, I mean that she doesn’t always have her harness on, just her collar and leash and that it’s more relaxed for her like it would be at home. If she had to work every time I left my cabin, she’d be totally spent within a few days. She has to work whenever I get off the train so it’s good for her just to chill while she’s on board. She’s not allowed to take food from people but she can enjoy pats and more attention. She is certainly a conversation starter.
The Journey Beyond crew are always helpful. They are not designated support staff, they are hospitality workers, but there is never any hesitation to help me with reading a menu, checking the schedule, or bringing me drinks. I can fit in a single cabin with my dog, but I have been allocated the accessible cabin without asking for it and I’ve really appreciated that. One of my favourite things to do on the train is to get all the statistics about her length, weight, crew, passengers, carriage numbers, and locomotives. I have a particular love for the Loco NR 28 because that was the one that hauled the Indian Pacific on my first trip as an independent adult in 2014.
Sometimes I actually feel homesick for the trains. I love those trains so much that I miss them and the adventure of it all terribly when I’m not on them and don’t have a plan to go on them. I listen to as many documentaries and videos as possible about the trains because they make me feel like I’m on the journey even when I’m not. I’ve also made lots of videos myself on the trains for my YouTube channel and they are the best way for me to imagine myself back on the Big Girls. I can’t wait for my next trip.