Train ride to the Southern Highlands - I

On Saturday, we took a steam train ride down to the Southern Highlands. Old Sydney steam trains leave from Central Station a few times over the winter on various day trips. I had booked tickets a couple months ago, thinking it would be a good activity for jet-lagged people. I was also hoping it would provide a good slice of Australiana, and boy did it! I'll save those observations for a second post since I have lots of general train pics for this one.

The general itinerary for the day was:

- Leave Central Station at 8:30
- Make our way south, stopping at two outskirt towns - to pick up more passengers
- Head down through the Royal National Park and follow the coastline for a while
- Head inland and climb up the Illawara Escarpment
- Arrive in Robertson around mid-day and stopover for 2 1/2 hours to eat lunch & see the town
- Meet back at the train to head back to the city via a more inland route around the western side of the highlands.

The train was really cute: most of the cars were a dark maroon.

Especially when the train was getting up to speed, you could see the steam clouds rolling back over the carriages.

We were in the economy carriage, which meant we paid for our own food & drink. But we had a cool little booth for the three of us.

And here we are, a little more tired and soot-y at the end of the day...

One of us - I'm not naming names - brought his Harry Potter wand for the trip. Since that's what you do on steam train rides.

The train ride was lovely. We headed south down through the Royal National Park and alongside some coastal towns.

And through some rolling farmland and valleys.

Then the train made a steep climb up the Illawara Escarpment. During the climb, the train gained one foot every 30 feet of track, and the fireman shoveled about 3 tons of coal during the hour-long incline!

The views at the top were beautiful.

Then it was on to Robertson for lunch. There are many funny things to capture about Robertson and other parts of our trip, which I'll put in a different post.

Instead, I'll end with one of my favorite pics of the day, taken after the lunch stop in Robertson before we headed back to Sydney.

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