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Editor’s note: Sign up for Unlocking the World, CNN Travel’s weekly newsletter . Get news about destinations, plus the latest in aviation, food and drink, and where to stay. The Australian outback is one of the wildest places on Earth.
A vast void of deserts and semi-arid wilderness, it stretches across about 80% of the country’s interior — an area roughly equivalent to seven times the size of Texas. Temperatures are extreme day and night, and except for being home to the world’s largest population of feral camels, the forbidding outback is largely uninhabited. That makes it the perfect place to explore untouched nature at its finest: impossibly big blue skies, sunsets that can last for hours and some of the most awe-inspiring scenery on the planet.
But you don’t need to “rough it” to visit this remote region. I took the easy path across the outback: from the comfort of an air-conditioned luxury sleeper train. The Ghan is one of the longest train journeys in the world, spanning 1,851 miles (2,979 kilometers) and multiple climate zones, from tropical Darwin in Australia’s “top end” to the lush hills of Adelaide on the southern Indian Ocean.
How to ride the Ghan The transcontinental service operates twice a week in either direction, north or south, and runs year-round (except for December through February, the hottest months during the southern hemisphere’s summer). With top speeds of 71 miles (115 kilometers) per hour, the train could complete the entire journey in around a day and a half if it was running non-stop. But that is not an option — the Ghan is not a commuter rail line.
It’s a tourist train that operates like a slow-moving cruise ship on rails, with several extended stops and guided excursions along the length of the route. There are multiple itineraries with different tours, depending on where you embark, how long you want to stay on board, and what you want to see. Even in the sparsely populated outback, there are several small towns you can visit while riding the Ghan.
These settlements are often hundreds of miles away from any other major city. Most offer unique insights into Australia’s aboriginal history and culture — as well as a stark reminder of the struggles the country’s European settlers faced when they started exploring this hostile desert landscape in the 19th century. The Ghan lets you experience the region’s rugged beauty and heritage without ever needing to lift a finger.
Which is why this train is a highly rated bucket-list adventure for so many travelers, including Aussies. Rhyll Woodall and her husband started dreaming about a vacation on the Ghan 10 years ago, after catching their first glimpse of the outback from an airplane window on a domestic flight. “We saw the big brown land while flying from Melbourne and suddenly realized how vast Australia is,” said Woodall.
“And we thought, we’d like to do it.” She booked the longest run possible: “The Ghan Expedition,” a southbound, three-night journey that departs from Darwin. That train stops in Katherine, Alice Springs and Coober Pedy before arriving in Adelaide on the fourth day, some 75 hours later.
A luxury hotel on wheels On any given day, the Ghan is one of the longest passenger trains in the world. Its average length spans more than 900 meters (more than half a mile), with carriages coupled or decoupled depending on the number of guest bookings. My train was configured with 30 carriages, including two locomotives, three dining cars, three bar cars, one platinum club car and sleeping carriages for the guests and crew.
Passengers can choose between two service classes: platinum and gold. The platinum class is more expensive and features larger cabins and a spacious, private dining carriage for guests. But gold class is by far the most popular way to ride the Ghan and is the only service that offers single rooms for solo travelers.
Couples can book a gold twin cabin that has an en suite bathroom and a long, plush lounge seat that converts into bunk beds at night. Everything on the Ghan is designed to evoke the romance of the golden age of rail travel. The older gold cabins have brass fixtures for handles, warm earth-tone interiors and walnut wood wall paneling.
The rooms are vintage, and some have a dust-like smell to match, but that is part of the charm. It feels like you’re riding in a fancy, but slightly cramped and aging, hotel on wheels. And it’s not cheap.
The price of a double occupancy cabin in gold class starts at around $2,800 per person for three nights on “the Ghan Expedition”. Platinum class starts at more than $4,900 per person for the same. Kangaroo steak? Food is one of the highlights of any Ghan ride.
Most passengers dine at the Queen Adelaide restaurant, a carriage with Art Deco design accents and linen-topped tables. Meals there are a multi-course affair. The menu, which changes daily, is inspired by the outback regions the train passes through.
Some of the options include kangaroo loin, grilled saltwater barramundi and crocodile dumplings, just to name a few. You don’t pay for food and drinks onboard — even alcohol. It’s included in the cost of your ticket.
Which is one reason the bar car, dubbed the Explorer’s Lounge, is always full. Many passengers begin and end their days there, relaxing on long, rounded sofas while playing board games, reading a book, or just staring out the large windows that run the length of the car. There is Wi-Fi on board, technically.
But just like mobile coverage along the route, it’s unavailable in the most remote sections of the outback, which is virtually the entire trip. The lack of screen time makes the Ghan feel even more like a nostalgic throwback to a simpler era. Maggie Buldo boarded the Ghan with two of her close friends from Brisbane but spent much of her ride striking up conversations with other passengers, all strangers.
“I love the whole nothingness of the outback,” said Buldo. “It’s absolutely great.” That nothingness is undeniably relaxing.
And staff on board seem to truly enjoy pampering the guests. But thrill-seekers be forewarned: there’s nothing physically taxing about this long journey. The excursions offer a good chance to stretch your legs, but don’t expect to break a sweat.
Maybe that’s by design. Most travelers on the Ghan are in their 60s and 70s, according to Thomas Borthwick, the guest relations manager for Journey Beyond, the company that operates the train. With limited seats and runs, many passengers book their reservations months, sometimes years, ahead of time.
And despite the price tag, demand for the Ghan is incredibly high. Many riders are train enthusiasts hoping to learn more about the role of the railways in the early exploration and development of Australia’s vast interior. Ship of the desert The Ghan began traveling between Adelaide and Alice Springs in 1929.
The track was expanded to Darwin in 2004, creating Australia’s first north-south transcontinental railway link. Its name is an abbreviation of “Afghanistan,” in recognition of South Asian immigrants who moved to Australia in the 1800s. Many of them brought camels, which Australia desperately needed to venture deeper into the remote outback.
Only the dromedary — known as the “ship of the desert” — had the strength and endurance to survive the extremely harsh conditions here. Australia’s immigrant cameleers were pioneers of outback exploration. They helped construct roads and railway lines, including early tracks that made the current route of the Ghan possible.
The Ghan’s logo still features a single-humped camel and cameleer. You can see it most prominently on the train’s iconic red locomotive. A modern-day cameleer That’s where I met Graham Dadleh.
The 60-year-old is one of two drivers who take turns at the helm over the course of the Ghan’s three-night journey. Dadleh said he’d traveled more than 60,000 miles (100,000 kilometers) across Australia every single year for the past four decades that he’s worked for the country’s railways. I ask him if he ever gets bored driving through the nothingness of the outback.
“Never,” Dadleh told me. “I love it.” It’s personal pride, he said, that keeps him going.
That and a deeply personal family connection to the outback. Dadleh’s great-grandfather was an Afghan immigrant who came to Australia with camels, he said. Balooch Dadleh immigrated to South Australia and by 1902 had settled in the small outback town of Marree, according to a written account in the book “Australia’s Muslim Cameleers” by Philip Jones and Anna Kenny.
By 1927, Balooch Dadleh owned 35 camels and led teams that transported supplies on them between outback towns in South Australia and Queensland. Balooch’s son — Dadleh’s grandfather — also worked on camel farms in Australia. “The Ghan just holds a special place in my heart,” said Dadleh.
“It’s a big deal to me. I see myself as a modern-day cameleer.” These days, Dadleh spends much of his time in the locomotive trying to avoid camels.
Australia has an estimated one million feral camels — also descendants from the early immigrants of the 1800s — still roaming throughout the deserts of the outback. Drivers scan the horizon constantly, Dadleh said, to make sure their trains don’t hit animals wandering too close to the tracks. Fortunately, we did not.
And by early afternoon on the fourth day, the Ghan rolls into Adelaide’s train terminal for its final stop of the journey. Traveling through the wilds of Australia’s outback, most passengers agree, makes for the trip of a lifetime. For Dadleh, it’s just another day in the office — not that it ever gets old.
“Nothing is ever the same from trip to trip. The weather patterns, wildlife, the night skies,” Dadleh said. “It’s one of the best offices you can work in.
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