The ABBA Express

Today is ABBA day! We get off to a leisurely start with some free time after breakfast to walk up town if you like and grab a coffee before heading to the station to meet your fellow travellers and board our private train for the journey to Bogan Gate, where’ we’ll transfer to our private coach for the short hop to Trundle.  We’ll arrive in good time to be part of the ABBA Festival street parade and the rest of the day is yours to wander at will and take in the atmosphere and music with your “access all areas” ticket, including the main event in the evening at the showground.

There are plenty of food options at the festival for you to graze your way through the day and evening.  The local pub does have a dining room and you can make your own booking in advance if you’d like that option.  You’ll have the flexibility to return to Parkes whenever you want in the evening by using your ticket to join any one of the shuttle buses going between Trundle and Parkes.

Overnight: The Parkview Parkes Motel, Parkes (B)

Today we’re back on our own private rail motor train after breakfast for a full day round trip across the Central Slopes and back up the ranges to the Tablelands. Our train takes us west out past the new intermodal loops and junctions of the Inland Rail and then we motor north on the first completed section of the Inland Rail. The junction at Narromine offers a great spot for a break for lunch and a visit to the excellent Aviation Museum centred around the World War Two RAAF training base.

Further down the line we roll on through Dubbo and Wellington and pull up in Stuart Town to have a drink or two, enjoy some live music, and an early dinner at the classic old Ironbark Inn just beside the station. After dinner it’s off across the fertile hills to Orange, where we’ll check into our hotel and have time to gather in the lounge bar to relax, socialise and unwind.

Overnight: Remington Hotel, Orange (B, L, D)

Departing Orange at a respectable hour, our private rail motor will  journey east along the Tablelands with our first stop being the quaint heritage village of Millthorpe. Here you’ll  have time to graze and browse in this charming, compact community before reboarding the train for the short run to Bathurst, the oldest inland settlement in Australia and one of the region’s most prosperous towns.

Our train pulls up in Bathurst where we board our coach for the transfer to lunch which is hosted in the lavish surrounds of Abercrombie House, a veritable Baronial Castle in the bush and an Australian heritage treasure. In the afternoon you have the option to return into town and visit the Motor Museum and Fossil and Mineral Museum before taking the train onto Wallerawang down the Fish River Valley, or take a coach tour out to the spectacular Mayfield Gardens, one of the country’s most extensive, privately owned, high-country gardens in the style of the English stately homes, travelling on to Wallerawang by coach.

We’ll all meet up at the Black Gold resort and motel, our home and dinner venue for the night.

Overnight: Black Gold Resort, Wallerawang (B, L, D)

This morning after a hearty breakfast, we depart by coach for a short visit to the State Mine Museum at Lithgow before heading up the Scenic Hill to Clarence, to meet our specially chartered steam train for a ride on the recently reopened iconic Zig Zag Railway. The Great Lithgow Zig Zag was the original route of the railway over the Blue Mountains. The challenge for engineers in the 1860’s was how to descend the steep ranges with the limited technology and budgets of the day. An ingenious system of switchbacks were built allowing trains to rise and fall on their way from the city to the west. Even though the Zig Zag was bypassed in the early 1900’s the structures remained and today our tourist train brings the history alive as it thunders up the range echoing off the surrounded mountains just as it did back in the day.

Back in Lithgow, there’ll be time for you to grab a quick lunch before we board the 1:18pm scheduled Express train to Sydney, arriving at a bit before 4pm. This is where our short escape to the Abba festival and beyond will come to an end amidst whoops of “Mamma Mia”, “Dancing Queen” and “Gimme, Gimme, Gimee.”!

(B)