Forget beach resorts – no other holiday is as relaxing as this

There are many reasons to travel, but sometimes we simply want to get away. To be on the move, to be hypnotised by passing landscapes and take time in this fast-forward era to do nothing for a while but relax and think.

Whenever I want to unwind the mind, read a book or stare at scenery, I go on a train journey. All that clickety-clack and movement onwards excites, yet strangely soothes. I’m lulled into another state of being. Long train journeys encourage mindfulness. You live in the moment, look out the window, think interesting thoughts, and have nothing to worry about.

As for destination, nowhere is quite as zen as the Australian outback. All that big blue sky and orange emptiness. Your soul surrenders to the outback’s immensity, helped along by a non-existent internet and phone connections. Why stare at a small screen? The grand sweep of an entire continent goes bustling by.

You might think there’s nothing in the outback, but every something captures your attention. A tumbledown tin shed. A bonsai-twisted tree. Kangaroos bouncing against a sunset. Every now and then you slip past an improbable town – fibro cottages, Hills Hoists – and wonder about people’s lives there.

No rough drives, eye-squinting sun or dust on a train journey. On the Indian Pacific between Sydney and Perth recently my cabin was a zen capsule of comfort and minimalism. I could stretch out my legs and watch the Blue Mountains and Flinders Ranges and Nullarbor go effortlessly by.

Then I was cocooned in my doona. Lifting the blind up in the night was a where-are-we treat of moonlit hills, a sparkle of stars, a slash of sunrise as we arrived in Broken Hill. The earth was orange: we could have been on Mars.

Broken Hill was a destination for an off-train experience, yet I found guilty pleasure in boarding again, knowing I’d nothing to do for the rest of the day. The Flinders Ranges were a gorgeous symphony in red and purple. Over dinner of grilled swordfish and banoffee pie, green pastures and canola fields took over. Why wouldn’t I be feeling relaxed?

The vibe of The Ghan between Adelaide and Darwin a few years ago was different. The landscapes were redder and rawer. Australia rolled past: the Finke River a wide ribbon of sand, then stony escarpments and straggling gum trees. Along the Hugh River, big white-trunked eucalyptus seemed hungry for water. Then the train slipped through a gap in the MacDonnell Ranges and into Alice Springs.