On day four of our trip, we headed to the Adelaide railway terminal to catch the midday Ghan train north to the Australian Outback. We were greeted with champagne and juice, our luggage quickly checked, and then we were off with our overnight bags to snap some photos of the train before boarding the first leg of 2,979 km (1,851 miles).
[This post is part two in a five-part series about our Ghan voyage across Australia. If you missed the first post, you can find it here.]
For more than a year, I have been dreaming about a train trip across Australia on the Ghan. Now in its 90th year of service, the Ghan is a passenger train that traverses the “red centre” of Australia from south to north. Operated by Great Southern Rail, the 54-hour ride starts in Adelaide, the capital of South Australia, and ends in Darwin, the capital of the Northern Territory. If you aren’t familiar with the geography of Australia, you could be forgiven for not realizing that covers an astonishing nearly 3,000 km (1,880 miles), plus whatever stopovers and forays into the Outback you do along the way.
This isn’t a trip you do on the fly. Most people who do it are retired – Australians call them “grey nomads” – and have been thinking about it for a lifetime. Several months ago I finally bought the tickets as a special gift to my husband, and in mid-June we took this inspiring 12-day journey. Now that we have safely returned home and entered our last month at Post, I cannot imagine a more profound way for us to have begun our goodbyes to Australia than riding the Ghan.
Author, Speaker, Thought Leader
A record of worldwide travel
American expat life in Switzerland
My personal blog
Your exclusive news aggregator handpicked daily!
A Millennial's Musings of the World.
"Not all those who wander are lost..." --J.R.R. Tolkien
Traveling Fashion Designers 🌼
A senior project travel blog
stories on adventure, and travel, and real life
Stories from a mid-west girl in Macedonia
This blog does not represent the US government, Peace Corps, or people of North Macedonia.
Live well & Enjoy.
This is what life is like when you don't do things the easy way.
A Humorous and Factual Repository.
A Humorous and Factual Repository.
Our worldwide travels beginning in the year 2017
Exploring the World Diplomatically
some stories from a life in the foreign service
Personal Finance for English Teachers Abroad
So raise your glass
My rocks are the memories from different adventures. I thought I would just leave this bag here.
A soulful explorer living an inspired life
Time for adventure
My Life As An Expat Abroad
My thoughts.
Tales from a Serial Expat
Detroit --> Angola --> Chile --> Cambodia--> India
the doings of the familia Calderón
A little drama every day. ~Dramababyabroad
Wanderings & Wonderings
Inclusion Isn't Optional
two humans, one cat, and our lives together in West Africa
my travels, my way. currently exploring eswatini and the rest of southern africa as a peace corps volunteer
Foreign Service Officer and Returned Peace Corps Volunteer
Short Fiction by Nicola Humphreys
This Blog is about discovering the magic of forests in every aspect of life from a small plant in a metropolis to the forests themselves
Chimping around the world!
We travel, some of us forever, to seek other places, other lives, other souls. – Anais Nin
A blog about health, the keto diet, weight loss, family, relationships, travel & love!
A life well-lived around the world.
Joyce Hooley
Collecting Postcards 