The Blues Train – Queenscliff, Australia

Wednesday, 29 January 2014

I rode the Blues Train. It’s a nice combination of train spotting and blues music which operates on summer Friday or Saturday nights along the Bellarine Peninsula outside Melbourne from Queenscliff to Drysdale (all of 16km) and back. Not quite as far as my trip on the Trans-Mongolian train through China, Mongolia and Russia last year. Click here for the first of a half dozen postings on that big red train ride.

◄ For the train spotters there’s a genuine 1917 steam train. As long as it’s not a day of ‘total fire ban’ when no outside fires (even barbecues) are allowed due to the danger of bushfires. In that case you have to make do with a diesel locomotive.

 

▲ Solo guitarist on this sector.

On this much shorter trip for your A$95 you get dinner at Queenscliff Station before you set off on a journey that’s going to take several hours. At each stop (Suma Park Homestead on Marcus Hill, Drysdale, Marcus Hill again), you mill around on the station platform, have another drink or an ice cream and then board a different carriage. There are four carriages, each with different performers, a solo act, a duo, a trio and a full band. You even get to dance on one sector (in the carriage with no seats), although you could dance in the aisle on every leg. It was good fun!