The day the Nullarbor awoke
As I opened the door into the buffet car on the Indian Pacific I couldn’t help but notice a group of passengers standing robot-like, backs to the bar.
Mesmerised, beers ignored, they stared out the train’s panoramic windows at the endless Nullarbor Plain, their heads nodding slightly, up and down, in unison.
What weirdness had I walked into?
No one spoke as the train sped along the longest, flattest, straightest stretch of railroad on Earth – 478kms of almost uninhabited plain – with the only sound being the muffled clickety-clacks of the wheels as they passed over rail joints.
So coordinated was the nodding I thought maybe this was some communal joke to help pass the time on the 70-hour, 4,352 km trip across Australia from Sydney to Perth. But when I turned to look out the window to where the ‘robots’ were staring I realised this was no joke – my fellow travellers had fallen into what I later named the ‘Nullarbor trance’. But what caused it?
Running parallel to the train, telegraph poles flashed past every few seconds. The wires between them rose up and down between each pole. With nothing else to look at, the group at the bar had become mesmerised by the wires, their eyes tracking them… up and down, up and down. It was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.
But what the Nullarbor delivered next shocked them out of this deep trance.
When I had first looked out the window, following the gaze of my fellow passengers, I saw the vast flatness of the Nullarbor Plain stretched to the horizon where orange sand, mottled by grey saltbush and spinifex, intersected with the deep blue sky.
But soon, unannounced, a huge emerald wave burst off the surface of the sand, engulfing everything in sight.
Disturbed by the train, tens of thousands of tiny green birds had risen out of the saltbush – wave upon wave of them – some so close I could make out the individuals. Millions of luminous feathers flashed in the sunlight as gasps of amazement filled the buffet car.
After what felt like minutes, but couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, the sparkling cloud of green wheeled away and disappeared, leaving everyone on the buffet carriage animated, trying to figure out what they’d just seen. Beer was spilt in the melee – the ‘Nullarbor trances’ had disappeared!
I was in the same dilemma too, what on Earth was that?
Then it dawned on me. “Budgerigars,” I blurted out involuntarily whereupon everyone looked at me incredulously.
Like me, the folks in the bar of the Indian Pacific that day had only seen blue, yellow or white budgies as pets in cages.
We’d never seen real budgies in the wild and, although I’d heard about large flocks, this was my first personal encounter. These wild birds are a spectacular, iridescent, unforgettable green and I remember thinking ‘why would anyone want to breed that colour out of them?’
Through the panoramic windows of the Indian Pacific the seemingly lifeless Nullarbor had shown us what Australia can conjure up out of almost nothing.
Other places to see wild budgies in Australia
Budgerigars are one of Australia’s greatest nomads, moving across vast swathes of the outback, tracking rain and seeding plants (an important food source). Huge flocks, sometimes called a ‘chatter’, will travel hundreds or even thousands of kilometres at high speed and low elevation in search of water. They can appear anywhere in the arid zone, bow they know where to find water remains a mystery.
Australian Geographic Travel conducts several birding and wildlife tours where you may see budgerigars:
- Birds of Channel Country Outback Safari – Queensland
- Mallee and Outback Birds of Victoria and Mungo – Victoria & New South Wales
- Island Birds & Whale Sharks & Ningaloo Reef – Western Australia
- Alice Springs to Uluru Luxury 4WD Camping Safari – Northern Territory
- Mungo Outback & Conservation Journey – Victoria & New South Wales
Roger Smith is the author of Australian Geographic’s Treading Lightly column and Director of Conservation Travel at Australian Geographic Travel where he where oversees the Conservation Travel and Sustainable Tourism program.
