editorial

Words and photographs by Christopher P. Hill 
September 7, 2026
Riding the rails from Darwin to Adelaide aboard Australia’s most famous train.
<figure id="attachment_162864" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-162864" style="width: 1200px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-162864" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Ghan-Train-Australia-Carriage-Attendant-Cabin-Interior.jpeg" alt="One of The Ghan’s carriage attendants at the remote rail siding of Manguri; inside a Gold Premium Twin cabin." width="1200" height="800" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Ghan-Train-Australia-Carriage-Attendant-Cabin-Interior.jpeg 1200w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Ghan-Train-Australia-Carriage-Attendant-Cabin-Interior-300x200.jpeg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Ghan-Train-Australia-Carriage-Attendant-Cabin-Interior-1024x683.jpeg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Ghan-Train-Australia-Carriage-Attendant-Cabin-Interior-768x512.jpeg 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-162864" class="wp-caption-text">Left to right: One of The Ghan’s carriage attendants at the remote rail siding of Manguri; inside a Gold Premium Twin cabin.</figcaption></figure>
“Welcome to <a href="https://destinasian.com/travel-guide/australia" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Australia</a>’s green center,” quips our guide as we approach Simpsons Gap, a narrow breach in the cliffs of the West MacDonnell Ranges just outside Alice Springs. We’re deep in the so-called Red Center of the southern Northern Territory, an arid expanse of iron-rich desert plains “and rust-hued quartzite ridges. Yet on this May morning, the ocher terrain is carpeted in greenery, thanks to an unusually wet season that has brought forth fresh spinifex and patches of ephemeral herbs and grasses.
Fronted by a perennial waterhole, Simpsons Gap is deeply sacred to its traditional inhabitants, the Arrernte people, who know it as Rungutjirpa—a landscape shaped by ancestral beings and crisscrossed by ancient Dreaming trails. In the 1870s, the gorge helped colonial surveyors find their way through the MacDonnell Ranges during construction of the Overland Telegraph Line. Today, it’s a major waypoint for trekkers on the Larapinta Trail, not to mention a popular excursion for passengers, like me, on <a href="https://www.journeybeyondrail.com.au/journeys/the-ghan/?DestinAsian" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Ghan</a>, Australia’s most famous train.
Traversing almost 3,000 kilometers between Darwin, on Australia’s tropical north coast, and the South Australian capital of Adelaide, The Ghan traces its roots to 1929, when the railway first reached Alice Springs. The original service was nicknamed The Afghan Express, after the cameleers from Afghanistan and neighboring regions who helped forge overland links across Australia’s interior in the 19th century. Privatized in the late 1990s and now operated by Journey Beyond (which also runs the <a href="https://www.journeybeyondrail.com.au/journeys/indian-pacific/?DestinAsian" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Indian Pacific</a> and <a href="https://www.journeybeyondrail.com.au/journeys/great-southern/?DestinAsian" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Great Southern</a> luxury sleeper trains), The Ghan has plied its current transcontinental route since 2004, when the line was finally extended to Darwin.
While the scenery hasn’t changed over the years, the train has kept pace with the resurgence of luxury rail travel. Platinum-class carriages were introduced in 2008 and reimagined a decade later, offering more spacious cabins alongside a dedicated restaurant and lounge. More recently, The Ghan debuted Gold Premium as a step above its entry-level Gold class, with carriages remodeled by Australian studio Woods Bagot. And earlier this year saw the launch of two ultra-luxe suites, Australis and Aurora, which occupy their own carriage adjacent to the Platinum section. Also designed by Woods Bagot, they feature queen beds, personalized bars, and contemporary interiors that nod to the pastoral outback, with saddle-leather accents, woolen throws, and warm woods. Other perks include butler service and a choice of exclusive off-train experiences.
<figure id="attachment_162868" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-162868" style="width: 1200px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-162868" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Ghan-Train-Australia-Standley-Chasm-Massaman-Water-Buffalo-Curry.jpeg" alt="A walk through Standley Chasm; a Massaman-style water buffalo curry served for lunch aboard the train." width="1200" height="800" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Ghan-Train-Australia-Standley-Chasm-Massaman-Water-Buffalo-Curry.jpeg 1200w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Ghan-Train-Australia-Standley-Chasm-Massaman-Water-Buffalo-Curry-300x200.jpeg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Ghan-Train-Australia-Standley-Chasm-Massaman-Water-Buffalo-Curry-1024x683.jpeg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Ghan-Train-Australia-Standley-Chasm-Massaman-Water-Buffalo-Curry-768x512.jpeg 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-162868" class="wp-caption-text">Left to right: A walk through Standley Chasm; a Massaman-style water buffalo curry served for lunch aboard the train.</figcaption></figure>
<figure id="attachment_162866" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-162866" style="width: 1200px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-162866" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Ghan-Train-Australia-Hat-Detail-Logo-on-Carriage.jpeg" alt="Wide-brimmed hats are a must for exploring the Australian outback; The Ghan’s cameleer logo points to its historic origins." width="1200" height="800" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Ghan-Train-Australia-Hat-Detail-Logo-on-Carriage.jpeg 1200w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Ghan-Train-Australia-Hat-Detail-Logo-on-Carriage-300x200.jpeg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Ghan-Train-Australia-Hat-Detail-Logo-on-Carriage-1024x683.jpeg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Ghan-Train-Australia-Hat-Detail-Logo-on-Carriage-768x512.jpeg 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-162866" class="wp-caption-text">Left to right: Wide-brimmed hats are a must for exploring the Australian outback; The Ghan’s cameleer logo.</figcaption></figure>
Alas, I won’t be staying in one. Despite their eye-watering price tag (the larger Australis Suite costs about US$13,000 per person for a three- night journey), the suites have been booked out for months. Instead, when I join the train in Darwin, I’m ushered down the platform to a Gold Premium carriage. My compact twin cabin, however, proves comfortable enough over the next four days, with a three-seat sofa that converts into a bed at night and a second bunk that folds down from the wall above. The palette of walnut, beige, and muted grays echoes that of Arrernte landscape painter Albert Namatjira, accented by brass detailing and subtle Aboriginal motifs. The tiny en suite bathroom requires some getting used to, but the LaGaia toiletries are a welcome touch, as are the satin eye masks.
Gold Premium passengers have their own lounge car, the social heart of our section of the train. Outfitted with leather banquettes and swivel chairs, it’s an inviting place to settle in with a barista-made coffee as the outback rolls past, or gather for drinks before dinner in the adjacent restaurant. Four-course menus showcase regional ingredients in dishes such as twice-baked Adelaide Hills cheese soufflé, juniper-encrusted kangaroo loin, crocodile dumplings, and Massaman-style water buffalo curry, each paired with local wines.
While elderly Australians make up a good portion of the passenger list, the itinerary is anything but sedate. After lunch on day one, most of us disembark at the town of Katherine and board private coaches for the short drive to Nitmiluk Gorge, where boats carry us up the Katherine River through towering red-rock canyons as a guide recounts the Dreamtime stories and cultural history of the local Jawoyn people. Freshwater crocodiles bask on the sandy banks. They look ferocious enough, but they’re nothing compared with the monstrous saltwater crocodiles that can make their way upstream when water levels are high, as they are now. Traps have been set to catch any that venture this far inland. The steel cages, we’re told, are designed to contain crocs up to five meters long.
<figure class="da-fullscreen-image" data-da-fullscreen-image="true"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="da-fullscreen-image__img wp-image-162867 size-full" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Ghan-Train-Australia-Nitmiluk-Gorge-Boat-Tour.jpeg" alt="Off-train excursions include boat tours of Nitmiluk Gorge." width="1800" height="1200" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Ghan-Train-Australia-Nitmiluk-Gorge-Boat-Tour.jpeg 1800w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Ghan-Train-Australia-Nitmiluk-Gorge-Boat-Tour-300x200.jpeg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Ghan-Train-Australia-Nitmiluk-Gorge-Boat-Tour-1024x683.jpeg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Ghan-Train-Australia-Nitmiluk-Gorge-Boat-Tour-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Ghan-Train-Australia-Nitmiluk-Gorge-Boat-Tour-1536x1024.jpeg 1536w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Ghan-Train-Australia-Nitmiluk-Gorge-Boat-Tour-1568x1045.jpeg 1568w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1800px) 100vw, 1800px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-162867" class="wp-caption-text">Off-train excursions include boat tours of Nitmiluk Gorge.</figcaption></figure>
The next day at Alice Springs, I join a six-hour tour that takes us first to Simpsons Gap, then deeper into the West MacDonnell Ranges to Standley Chasm, where, after a walk through the narrow defile, we join Arrernte guide Colleen Mack for a discussion about Aboriginal “skin names” and the complex kinship system they underpin. The bus returns us to The Ghan later that afternoon to freshen up before dinner under the stars at the historic Alice Springs Telegraph Station, which sits like a caravanserai in the scrublands north of town.
Our final excursion, to the opal-mining town of Coober Pedy in northern South Australia, begins at a lonely rail siding amid stony desert plains. With nothing to interrupt the view, it’s the first opportunity to fully appreciate The Ghan’s impressive length: three dozen stainless-steel carriages stretching almost a kilometer into the shimmering distance.
A mob of emus races alongside the waiting buses as they pull away for the Breakaways, a procession of striated mesas marbled with streaks of white, rosy pink, and ocher. The landscape around Coober Pedy is no less surreal, pocked with millions of holes dug by hopeful prospectors since opals were discovered here more than a century ago. The town itself is a dusty outpost where more than half the residents escape the punishing summer heat by living underground in “dugouts”—homes carved into the soft sandstone hillsides. And it’s not just the dwellings that are subterranean: we also visit an underground church and sit down for a banquet-style lunch at a restaurant set inside old mine tunnels. Other eccentricities include a gravelly 18-hole golf course without a single blade of grass—players carry a small piece of turf to tee off from.
Back at the siding, drinks and canapés await us around a bonfire as the sun sinks toward the horizon beyond The Ghan’s silvery carriages. Tomorrow morning we’ll reach the end of the line in Adelaide. But for now, there’s still time to savor the vastness of the Australian interior.
<figure id="attachment_162863" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-162863" style="width: 1200px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-162863" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Ghan-Train-Australia-Alice-Springs-Telegraph-Station-Sunset.jpeg" alt="An outdoor dinner at the historic Alice Springs Telegraph Station; sunset approaches at a stop in the South Australian outback." width="1200" height="800" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Ghan-Train-Australia-Alice-Springs-Telegraph-Station-Sunset.jpeg 1200w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Ghan-Train-Australia-Alice-Springs-Telegraph-Station-Sunset-300x200.jpeg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Ghan-Train-Australia-Alice-Springs-Telegraph-Station-Sunset-1024x683.jpeg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Ghan-Train-Australia-Alice-Springs-Telegraph-Station-Sunset-768x512.jpeg 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-162863" class="wp-caption-text">Left to right: An outdoor dinner at the historic Alice Springs Telegraph Station; sunset approaches at a stop in the South Australian outback.</figcaption></figure>
<figure id="attachment_162865" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-162865" style="width: 1800px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-162865" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Ghan-Train-Australia-Exterior-View.jpeg" alt="The Ghan at Manguri in the outback of South Australia, with three dozen gleaming stainless-steel carriages headed by two locomotives." width="1800" height="1200" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Ghan-Train-Australia-Exterior-View.jpeg 1800w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Ghan-Train-Australia-Exterior-View-300x200.jpeg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Ghan-Train-Australia-Exterior-View-1024x683.jpeg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Ghan-Train-Australia-Exterior-View-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Ghan-Train-Australia-Exterior-View-1536x1024.jpeg 1536w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Ghan-Train-Australia-Exterior-View-1568x1045.jpeg 1568w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1800px) 100vw, 1800px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-162865" class="wp-caption-text">The Ghan at Manguri in the outback of South Australia, with three dozen gleaming stainless-steel carriages headed by two locomotives.</figcaption></figure>
<a href="https://www.journeybeyondrail.com.au/journeys/the-ghan/?DestinAsian" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Ghan</a>’s three-night journeys from Darwin to Adelaide start from about US$3,350 per person for a Gold Twin cabin.
This article originally appeared in the <a href="https://subscription.destinasian.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">August/September 2026</a> print issue of DestinAsian magazine (“Going, Going, Ghan”). Buy a single issue or subscribe <a href="https://subscription.destinasian.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>.

The Ghan at Manguri in the outback of South Australia, with three dozen gleaming stainless-steel carriages headed by two locomotives.

Aboard The Ghan: A Train Trip through the Australian Outback