The Ghan wends its way across Australia’s vast and arid outback on its three-day journey from Adelaide to Darwin
PHOTOGRAPHS MATT MUNRO
@OliSmithTravel
DAY 1
ADELAIDE
What is the longest thing moving in the world at the precise moment you read this? A jumbo jet? An oil tanker? Disqualifying phenomena like glaciers and tectonic plates, the answer is likely to be a train, and quite likely an Australian train, crawling across the outback on the far side of the world.
Dawood Choudhury in the Adelaide Mosque
Australia has the record for the world’s longest train (4.5 miles) and though the service on the platform of Adelaide Station one crisp autumn morning measures a comparatively measly half a mile, it is still in the tradition of truly whopping, postcode-straddling Australian trains. This particular train is the Ghan, the luxury sleeper service renowned as the Orient Express of the Antipodes.
The train readies for departure, and passengers potter along the platform with their luggage in tow – some board golf buggies to reach the remoter carriages. On board, uniformed staff shuttle guests to their quarters: those with cabins at the front end of the Ghan will have already travelled half a mile of the 1,851 miles between Adelaide and our fnal destination, Darwin, a three-day journey north across the continent.
A Ghan poster in the National Railway Museum, Adelaide
This trans-outback journey has a special place in Australian hearts. The vast majority of the passengers are (generally retired) Aussies: some sent clockwork Ghans puffng across the outback of their living room foors as kids. But, more importantly, some 85% of Australians live on or around the coast. For many of them, travelling on the Ghan is a way to grasp the immensity of their nation for the frst time: to get some measure of the emptiness that extends into infnity beyond their garden fences.
There is a frisson of anticipation before departure. Passengers drum their fngers waiting for the screech of the wheels. There are questions for the staff: ‘How do you turn on the shower? Where is the dining car?’
But the question most often asked is: ‘Why is it called the Ghan?’
THE ADELAIDE MOSQUE