Original subtitles

Come with us on an Australian journey that's unlike any other.

Hugging a spectacular coast, we'll see how this railway line

binds together an immense and diverse land.

From a journey into the past...

BELL RINGS All aboard!

This is old-fashioned Queensland, old-fashioned Australia.

Everyone leaves with a smile on their face.

..to an animal that fooled science.

It's just part of my DNA, it's in my blood.

On the way we'll take to the skies...

..and explore the deep.

Your eyes are everywhere,

just looking at the wonder and the diversity.

It's an out-of-world experience.

We'll learn from those who know this ancient land better than anyone...

DIDGERIDOO DRONES

..and from those protecting it for the future.

It's mindboggling for some,

because it has diversity that you don't see elsewhere.

This isn't just any railway journey,

this is one of the most scenic railway journeys in the world.

An Australian dream, onboard The Spirit of Queensland.

HORN BLARES

Our journey starts in Queensland's capital, Brisbane.

The third-largest city in Australia,

with a population of almost 2.5 million.

It may have started as a penal colony,

but it's now a thriving, cosmopolitan, global city...

..and a transport hub.

The central Roma Street railway station, opened in 1875,

is today Brisbane's principal station for long-distance travel.

And it's from here that our thousand-mile journey

up Queensland's spectacular coast will start.

It's a journey that will reveal

the extraordinary diversity of the state...

..and the train that will be our home for the next 25 hours

is aptly named The Spirit of Queensland,

and it rolls into the station bang on time.

This is the epitome of modern locomotives.

Capable of over 130 miles per hour,

the Hitachi-built Tilt Train

is the fastest narrow-gauge train in the world.

But this is a journey on a continental scale.

Today we're gonna travel from Brisbane through to Cairns,

it's roughly a 25-hour trip,

covering about 1,600 kilometres up the Queensland coast.

STATION ANNOUNCER: Customers on Platform 10,

this is the five-minute, and final boarding call

for The Spirit of Queensland service to Cairns.

With a final goodbye...

WHISTLE PEEPS

STATION PA: Please stand clear.

..our Queensland adventure is underway.

ONBOARD ANNOUNCER: Good afternoon, customers,

welcome aboard Queensland Rail's Spirit of Queensland service.

This spectacular journey

starts halfway up the east coast of Australia in Brisbane.

From there the train travels north past the Sunshine Coast to Gympie,

once the heart of the Australian gold rush.

And a newly renovated branch line

offers a chance to experience Queensland

as it was in those bygone days.

Heading north again, the train passes through

prime sugar cane fields, the source of the legendary Bundaberg rum.

And then on into vast, open cattle country.

Travelling through the night and further north still,

we're into the tropics, where we will take to the air

with the Flying Doctors,

before heading underwater to see how art is helping to preserve

Queensland's most famous natural wonder, the Great Barrier Reef.

Eventually we'll reach Cairns

and our ultimate dizzying destination,

the world's oldest tropical rainforest.

It's a journey of over a thousand breathtaking miles

on of the most dazzling passenger trains on the planet.

How we doing there, folks? Just checking tickets.

Thank you very much.

Going through to Gordonvale.

Thank you very much, folks, enjoy your trip.

It's not long before the suburbs of Brisbane

give way to green, rolling countryside.

For most passengers it's time to settle in and enjoy the view.

For others it's just time to relax.

You wouldn't know it, but for assistance dog Ollie,

it's his first time on the train.

Ollie's been doing really good.

He was not scared of the train when we first got on.

He's a very brave boy,

even if something scares him he pushes through.

He got comfortable very quickly, and now he loves it.

Unlike Ollie, Vanessa's an old hand,

and for her, nothing beats the space and comfort

of this Aussie super-train.

We have a lot more space than we would have on a plane, for example,

and I can't drive such long distances,

so, the train gives us the opportunity to do that

and still be quite comfortable.

It's not long before the striking peaks

of the Glass House Mountains come into view.

They were given their unusual name by Captain Cook

when he first saw them, because they reminded him

of the conical glass furnaces

that dotted the Yorkshire landscape back home.

HORN BLARES

But in no time at all we're beyond the mountains

and into the lush hinterland of the Sunshine Coast.

It's an area rich in wildlife...

..and it's also our first jumping-off point,

because it was near here one day in 2012 that local man Neil Andison

had an experience he'll never forget.

A clue is in his nickname.

Around here Neil's known as the Platypus Whisperer.

My first experience of a platypus, glanced down at the creek,

and there was one swimming full-pelt up the centre of the creek.

To say I was excited is probably an understatement.

A feeling of...awe.

Since then Neil has dedicated his life

to studying and teaching others about the platypus.

Look, there's one over there.

It's just part of my DNA, it's in my blood.

My connection to the platypus is such that if I don't see one

I suffer withdrawal symptoms.

The platypus is an extraordinary animal.

It's a mammal that lays eggs,

and it's found only along the east coast of Australia.

In fact, when the body of a platypus

was first brought back to Britain in 1798,

scientists thought it was a hoax.

They were convinced different body parts of various animals

had been stitched together.

It looked as if it had the bill of a duck,

the body of an otter, and the tail of a beaver.

It's truly one of a kind.

And for Neil, well worthy of preservation.

My reason for starting what I do is to educate people

about the platypus, and the need to look after our creeks and rivers

to make sure that this animal survives.

It's survived for millennia,

let's let it survive for another millennia.

HORN BLARES

Back onboard The Spirit of Queensland...

..it's time to sit back, enjoy the view,

and take in all that Queensland has to offer.

Well, I'm on the train with my sister, Rhonda,

I'm from Perth and she's from Melbourne,

and this is a good place to meet.

Denise invited me and I couldn't say no,

cos she's great to travel with, and this is really cruise-y.

I really like just looking out the window,

looking at the Australian bush,

cos I like the bush, and it's unique in the world.

HORN BLARES

A couple of hours from Brisbane,

and the train reaches the historic town of Gympie.

This is gold rush country.

Gold was discovered here in 1867,

and it was gold that brought the railways.

For us, it's a chance to stop off and travel back in time.

An old branch line has been restored

and put to work by the local community,

and it offers a chance to experience Queensland

as it was in the pioneering days.

We believe it was worth preserving,

and people are really attracted to it,

because it is a really beautiful line.

Spend a lot of time here, let's put it that way.

Adrian Hurley has worked on the Mary Valley Line for 22 years.

He was always going to be a train driver.

My dad was a train driver, so, I was brought up about 'em.

I remember, as a little kid, riding on the steam engines with Dad,

and I've always had a love affair with 'em.

This is old-fashioned Queensland, old-fashioned Australia.

I'd encourage people to come.

Everyone leaves with a smile on their face.

A smile on their face, and a bellyful of Queensland delicacies.

BELL RINGS All aboard!

HORN BLARES STEAM HISSES

The locomotive is a 1920s C17, number 967,

one of 227 built for the Queensland railways.

They started building these trains in 1920, and didn't stop until 1953.

It was the most common class of locomotive in Queensland.

An excellent all-rounder.

Today Adrian is being ably assisted by volunteer driver Peter Alder.

Being a driver is very satisfying.

It's really good to do.

I never thought I would have the opportunity to do this.

It's great to see the looks on the people's faces,

and give them a chance to experience what life was like here

on a Queensland Rail branch line.

The railway was a wonder of its time. It opened up the valley.

It was built to carry agricultural produce,

but even back then tourists were welcome.

Now, as a heritage line, it's tourists who are the main cargo,

500 to 600 every week.

HORN BLARES

For the volunteer drivers, the beauty of the line never fades.

You've got the hills in the background,

the dairy cows, the paddocks.

Everyone waves, absolutely everyone waves.

You get a sore arm from waving to everyone!

This is a very, very pretty line.

The railway here in Gympie is a living piece of history.

It's something that any train buff should do,

and if you're not a train buff, come and do it anyway.

Leaving this beautiful old rattler behind,

we return to the most modern of locomotives.

Soon we'll be entering the tropics,

and with some fire in our belly, too.

Today I'm gonna be making

The World's Most Scenic Railway Journey blend.

We're travelling over a thousand miles from Brisbane to Cairns

on The Spirit of Queensland,

enjoying the most spectacular views in Eastern Australia.

We've left Brisbane and passed through

the old gold rush town of Gympie,

and we're now on our way to Bundaberg,

home of one of Australia's favourite tipples.

From there we'll continue north into cattle country,

and at Rockhampton we'll cross the Tropic of Capricorn

for the rest of our Queensland adventure.

Beyond Gympie the train passes over rich, red volcanic soil.

And it's a soil that has a sweet touch...

..because it's perfect for the production of sugar cane.

It's made our next stop, Bundaberg, famous across Australia,

because just like in the Caribbean,

where there's sugar cane there's rum.

Back in 1888, here in Bundaberg, the sugar industry was booming,

but one of the by-products you get when creating sugar

is a product called molasses.

And there were a group of sugar millers here in Bundaberg

who had so much molasses they didn't know what to do with it.

It was a big, sticky problem, and they solved it in one evening,

in the customary manner, down the pub.

They decided to use all the excess molasses to make rum,

and the rest is Bundaberg history.

So, we're very proud of the rum we make here,

and also incredibly proud of the way we do it.

It starts by sourcing three local ingredients,

molasses, yeast and water.

These three ingredients are mixed together in these giant tubs,

a syrupy broth that resembles a witch's brew.

We'll have them bubble away for about 36 hours,

this is what creates a wash.

If you're at a whisky distillery,

they might call it a distiller's beer.

The liquid is then pushed through these giant cylinders,

where it's injected with steam.

It ends up in huge stills

which are heated so that the liquid turns to gas.

Now we're gonna cool that gas back down to a liquid,

and you've got 78% alcohol ready for maturation.

There are over 200 vats on site,

and in these the rum is left to come of age.

But it all started with the Queensland sugar cane,

and, of course, the trains that supply it.

All of the sugar cane that is refined at Bundaberg Sugar

is brought in by cane trains from the local Bundaberg region.

We have trains coming into the mill pretty much every 20 minutes.

Now, these trains are small little locomotives

carrying in about 20 to 30 carriages full of little billets.

These billets of sugar cane are unloaded at the site,

ready for the empty carriages to be pulled back out to the farms.

It's the different wooden barrels

that give each rum its distinct flavour.

And now Duncan is on a mission to make something truly unique.

We are now in the barrel house,

or the Blendatorium, as we like to call it.

I'm gonna be making a blend using rum matured in sherry barrels,

port barrels, Scotch whisky barrels,

and today I am making a really special blend,

The World's Most Scenic Railway Journey blend.

Now, I'm gonna start with this rum

that's been matured in bourbon barrels.

So, I'm gonna take 3mls of that liquid, there.

And then I'm also gonna take 3mls of the rum

that's been matured in sherry barrels,

gonna put those two together.

Then just to finish it off,

and give it a little extra complexity and a bit of depth,

I'm gonna take 1ml of this rum that's been matured in port barrels.

It's a little richer. Put those three rums together,

give it a bit of a swirl...

..smells pretty good.

Tastes pretty good, too. I think we're ready to fill up the bottle.

Back on the train, the Bundy is going down a treat.

But it's not long before the cane fields disappear.

Soon, Mount Larcom comes into view.

A towering peak that tells us

we're passing from South into Central Queensland.

On the plains beyond, soil is not so much sweet as dry.

This more arid land is prime cattle farming country.

In fact, our next stop is known as the beef capital of Australia.

Rockhampton, known simply as 'Rocky' to the locals,

has a population of around 80,000,

but today in the greater Rockhampton area

people are in the minority.

It's said they're outnumbered by cattle 40-to-1.

And it's all down to climate.

Gavin Tickle is manager

of the Central Queensland Livestock Exchange,

and he knows that being on the border of the tropics

is the key to Rocky's beef bonanza.

We don't have as cold winters here as down south,

we've got a good rainfall average, those things combine,

and the type of grasses and pastures farmers can produce here

allows for a good cow herd, and that sets up the area.

Between 125,000 and 150,000 cattle are sold here every year,

often over 3,000 in a single day.

It's a multi-million dollar industry.

The sales agents work in teams,

each team with a different coloured shirt,

with professional spotters looking out for bids

often made with the smallest of nods and gestures.

All the auctioneers develop their own auctioneering style,

their own rattle, and they get the cattle happening.

It's really good to see and it's quite entertaining sometimes

watching the guys get up there.

They get quite animated at times,

and get right behind what they're doing.

Everyone gets very excited around it, it's a good atmosphere.

CATTLE LOW

It's at the livestock exchange

where farmers can get together and chew the cud.

Life on a cattle station out in rural Queensland

is tough and isolated.

Coming to Rocky's livestock exchange is a good day out.

Part of what makes Rockhampton

is the characters and personalities that live up here, you know,

we're very resilient up here, we've been through a lot of tough times,

and most people can still come through

with a good smile on their face, and have a good joke.

Very welcoming, always.

Everyone's really quick to say g'day,

shake your hand and introduce themselves.

In the past, cattle were brought onto the site by train.

It had its own loop off the main line, but that's now long gone.

Times have changed, but the site itself is busier than it ever was.

It's truly 'rocking'.

It's a great facility, a real busy facility,

and we service a really wide area of central Queensland.

Care for a ginger beer? Oh, yes.

Leaving Rockhampton behind us, the day is drawing to a close.

The Spirit of Queensland is rolling into the evening light.

But for the passengers,

there's still time to enjoy some beautiful scenery.

It's great out the window.

It's really good, because this is a part of Queensland

I've never seen before.

I'm hoping for a great dinner, really nice wine, and a good sleep.

And just time to just cruise,

because the train's really smooth, I really like it, this part.

When dinner comes, it doesn't disappoint.

And a glass of Queensland red is the perfect way to wash it down.

Lovely!

And to make sure the night is a good one for all onboard,

passenger service supervisor Benjamin Clayton is on hand.

Ben's been with The Spirit of Queensland from the start,

and this is his first night onboard since becoming a father.

OVER TWO-WAY: Congratulations, Ben, how's the kid, doing good?

Everyone's good, it's my first trip back, so, happy to be at work,

but I do wish I was at home with the little one.

He may be missing his family, but for Ben,

working on the train is nothing short of a dream come true.

It's a job I've always wanted to do since I was a little boy.

And there's one part of the job

that's different from any other train...

..making the beds.

Our rail beds are one-of-a-kind in the world.

They were built specifically for The Spirit of Queensland.

They're Australian-designed, Australian-built.

We'll ask you to jump out so you're not pancaked,

and we'll put your bed down and make your bed for you.

Spirit of Queensland is now set to journey right through the night.

What awaits the next day is the stuff of dreams.

An underwater wonderland.

This has been a catalyst, groundbreaking, huge.

It's an out-of-world experience.

HORN BLARES

Throughout the night The Spirit of Queensland

has raced relentlessly north.

But now it's early morning, and time to sit up,

enjoy the scenery, and contemplate that perennial question...

Oh, that looks good, doesn't it?

..tea or coffee?

Just gonna go back and do some tea and coffee, I'll be right back, OK?

We've now travelled over 400 miles

on the line that unites this rich and diverse state...

..but we're not even halfway.

After Rockhampton we're in the tropics,

and travelling up the stunning Capricorn Coast.

We're going to take to the skies with the Flying Doctors...

..before stopping off in Townsville, now well into North Queensland,

and gateway to the Great Barrier Reef.

The distances involved are vast,

but to your average Aussie, that's no worries.

Being Australians, we don't worry about distance.

No. It's all about the journey.

Our friends overseas find it really weird that we would travel so far,

but to us, if we wanna see the country

we have to travel a long way.

Yeah. We're really quite happy to do that, aren't we?

We grow up doing it. Yeah. It's no drama at all.

But it's the huge distances that shape this country.

It's at this stage of the journey

that if you look up it's just possible you might see

a certain plane overhead.

We're a long way from the main centres of population,

and if there's one thing rural Australia is famous for,

it's the Flying Doctors.

I'm Claire, I'm a flight nurse with the Royal Flying Doctor Service,

I've been with the service for ten years.

We get to look after all sorts of people, from all over the place.

We fly west out to Longreach, down to Brisbane,

we cover the central Queensland area,

and we transfer about six people every day.

Over 12,000 patients are transported every year just in Queensland,

and over five million miles flown.

Because out in the bush

there's only one person for every four square miles.

So, I grew up in rural Queensland, and RFDS is an iconic organisation.

So, when I started nursing

it was always something in the back of my mind

that I'd like to work towards.

I love that we can provide that service, 24 hours a day,

to get people from their small communities

down to the big centres where they need to be.

On the planes there's not a huge amount of room,

but they're bustling with equipment.

So, we've got two stretchers for our patients.

Our aircraft have oxygen, suction,

just like a normal hospital bed setup.

We're basically set up like an intensive care unit in the air.

But things haven't always been so hi-tech.

The Flying Doctors started way back in the 1920s.

In fact, it was the first air ambulance service in the world,

and their first official flight,

on the 17th of May 1928, took place here in Queensland.

Since then, they've climbed to even greater heights,

and Claire has never looked back.

There's no other job like it. It's the best job in the world.

And I love it.

Down below, The Spirit of Queensland is venturing even further north.

We're now entering a land of rainforests and tropical beaches.

The beautiful Capricorn Coast comes and goes, and then...

..we're on to the Whitsunday Coast,

and more sun, sea and heavenly scenery.

In the early afternoon the train passes over the Burdekin Bridge,

sharing it with the highway.

The river here is prone to flooding,

and so, the bridge stretches an astonishing 3,620ft.

From here it's a short hop,

at least in Australian terms, to our next stop.

We're now well into North Queensland,

and the city of Townsville is its unofficial capital.

And it's a jumping-off place for anyone who wants to explore

one of the greatest natural wonders of the world.

Townsville is a divers' heaven,

because this is the best place to see the Great Barrier Reef.

Diving is an opportunity to immerse yourself

in the wonders of the Great Barrier Reef.

Your eyes are everywhere, just looking at the wonder

and the diversity.

It's an out-of-world experience.

Townsville resident Adam Smith is a seasoned diver.

But it's not all about pleasure.

Adam is a marine biologist and has spent decades studying the reef.

But in 2020 something unusual happened here.

Some strange, ghostly figures appeared.

This is the Museum of Underwater Art.

And Adam was one of the people behind it.

The Great Barrier Reef is a wonder,

it's recognised on the World Heritage list,

but it's also under enormous pressure,

particularly from issues such as climate change.

We want to have conversations with people about the reef,

and encourage them to change their behaviour,

to be more sustainable, to take actions.

As a scientist I speak to a very small audience, science nerds.

But if you combine science and art

you can reach millions of people.

So, that's been extremely exciting,

to get messages about the reef, and conservation, to the world.

And here in Townsville's Museum of Tropical Queensland,

more figures are being prepared for their positioning on the seabed...

..where they'll slowly become a part of the reef itself.

And as soon as they're put in the water they'll become biomorphic.

The ocean will be the owners of these sculptures,

and algae, and corals and barnacles will grow on them,

and change them completely.

So, every dive will be different.

The impact of the Museum of Underwater Art

has been a catalyst, groundbreaking, huge.

It has touched many people.

I love the beauty and diversity of the reef,

and telling those stories through art and science

will help ensure that this great wonder

is here for future generations.

Back on dry land, our extraordinary journey is now set

to take us away from the coast and into the hills,

as we take a unique and thrilling ride above our ultimate destination.

To get a view of the rainforest like this

you really have to be in a helicopter or a hot-air balloon.

It's the world's oldest tropical rainforest.

We're on a glorious Australian train journey

onboard The Spirit of Queensland.

We're now well into the north, and are heading inland.

Thank you. You're welcome.

There you go.

It's time for lunch.

And to accompany the meal, the sight of beautiful, open wilderness.

This is the Bowling Green National Park.

A vast landscape of shapeshifting flood plains and rugged mountains.

The land was opened up by the railway

at the end of the 19th century, but it was already settled.

In fact, it had been for rather a long time.

Wadda Mooli, everyone.

Wadda Mooli means 'welcome', and in our Birrigubba language

I just wanna welcome everyone here,

and make 'em sure that they're at ease in our country.

Eddie Smallwood is an elder of the Bindal people.

They have inhabited this land for about 40,000 years.

DIDGERIDOO DRONES

But that's not to say others aren't welcome.

We always have a smoking ceremony

because we wanna let our spirits know that whoever's there with us,

we're welcoming them to our country.

But we also are helping cleanse their own spirits,

and make them feel comfortable,

because it's like a healing process for the people that are there,

and our smoking ceremonies

are about cleansing the spirit and healing each other.

Eddie used to work on the railways,

but now teaches visitors about the history and culture of his people.

And an important part of this is the rock art of the area.

A lot of our rock art around here is really a history lesson for us,

because we've gotta know what our ancestors said in the past.

But we also look at that as being educational for the future.

All of our ancestors left a legacy there

for us to pass on to our families.

The rock art here is thought to depict dreamtime stories and maps.

It's closely linked to ceremonies and rituals

like the smoking ceremony.

When we show people rock art we explain to them

that this could be thousands of years old.

Then it takes them back

into a little journey themselves in their own mind.

The whole thing here is educating and respecting.

Our journey up the coast of Queensland is steeped in history.

But it's the ultramodern Spirit of Queensland that's been our guide.

To the west, the mountains of the Great Dividing Range,

to the east, the blue of the Pacific Ocean.

Our passage inbetween takes us through a lush tropical landscape,

and once again sugar cane is growing along the route.

ONBOARD ANNOUNCER: In approximately 30 minutes' time

we will be arriving in Cairns.

And then, 25 hours after our departure,

and over 1,000 miles later, we arrive in Cairns.

The stepping-off point for the final exhilarating leg of our journey.

Cairns is the starting point for the Kuranda Scenic Railway.

A breathtaking 23-mile ride

up into the world's oldest tropical rainforest.

These magnificent carriages date from the earliest 20th century,

but the line itself was completed in 1891,

when it was nothing short of an engineering marvel.

37 bridges had to be built,

and 15 tunnels carved by hand out of the mountainside.

The reason, mining.

The rainforest here is rich in tin and gold.

Today the cargo is tourists, who can choose Heritage Class,

to have that original, authentic experience,

or Gold Class, to sit in state like old colonials.

Over 1,000ft up, surrounded by dense rainforest,

the train reaches its destination, Kuranda Station.

The mines are long gone, and the rainforest is now fully protected.

G'day, guys.

And one of the rangers here is Austrian expat, Mike Gailer.

And here we are.

It's mindboggling for some,

especially the view that we've got from this lookout.

You're looking right down the gorge.

Mike first came here

while backpacking across Australia in 2008,

and he hasn't looked back since.

I have chosen this location as my new home

because it has diversity that you don't see elsewhere.

I've been working here for over 11 years,

and I can tell you it hasn't got boring yet.

In fact, the biodiversity here

is greater than anywhere else in Australia.

Scientists estimate the forest to be about 180 millions years old.

That's tens of millions of years older than the Amazon rainforest.

That's why in 1988 the whole area was declared a World Heritage Site.

At ground level it's dark and dense.

The best way to see the forest is from above.

So, in 1995 the Kuranda Rainforest Cableway opened,

running for nearly five miles above the forest canopy.

114 gondolas can carry over 600 people an hour, in each direction,

with no impact on the forest below.

This is the only cableway of its kind in the world.

Yeah, it's quite good to see from up here how dense the canopy is.

In fact, to get a view of the rainforest like this

you really have to be in a helicopter or in a hot-air balloon.

It's a spectacular ride, and it's just one of the reasons

this corner of Queensland is so special.

And hanging beneath a cable above the world's oldest rainforest

is the perfect place to look back on an incredible journey.

We've travelled over a thousand miles

up the spectacular Queensland coast...

..we've touched the past, and tasted paradise...

..and witnessed true wonders of nature,

and all thanks to one of

the most scenic railway journeys in the world.