Going on The Ghan through Australia

ON BOARD THE GHAN, Australia — As the sun rises over red sandy hills scattered with spiky spinifex bushes and stunted eucalyptus trees, the harsh beauty of the Australian Outback is bathed in a warm amber glow.

It's a stunning sight to wake up to in a cabin on Australia's transcontinental train known as The Ghan.

One of the first questions people ask when they hear you've made the cross-country trip for two days through largely uninhabited territory is, "Weren't you bored?"

Not for a moment.

The lonely desert landscape is just one set of scenery that rolls by the train's window as the ever-changing backdrop for a two-day, 1,851-mile trip from the southern city of Adelaide to the port of Darwin, on Australia's tropical north coast.

The view slowly evolves after the train leaves Adelaide's Keswick rail terminal, from the city's suburban sprawl into parched, harvested wheat fields and then into salt-encrusted plains near Port Augusta, an industrial town which calls itself the gateway to the Outback.

Meanwhile, passengers on the train chat, eat meals freshly cooked by on-board chefs, and sit or sleep — either in reclining airline-style seats or private cabins with foldaway beds. For those in the most expensive Gold Kangaroo class, there is a private mini-bathroom, complete with shower, sink and toilet, shoehorned into a cubicle the size of a phone booth.

The new service was inaugurated Feb. 1, with the first train completing its historic journey without a hitch on Feb. 3. But it wasn't always this easy.

The train's name honors Afghan camel drivers brought to the country in the 19th century to help blaze a trail into the harsh, unexplored vastness of the interior of the continent.

Originally camels were the only beasts of burden capable of surviving the hot, dry conditions as pioneers built a north-south telegraph line. But in 1929, a railway was built between Adelaide and the central city of Alice Springs.

The link to Darwin was completed just last year. These days, two powerful red diesel locomotives do the hard work, hauling the train's silver carriages — each emblazoned with an image of a camel and its rider, just in case anybody forgets the line's humble beginnings.

After Port Augusta, 190 miles north of Adelaide, the Outback begins in earnest, with vegetation fading away to spinifex — a spiny bush that was the bane of early explorers — and short eucalyptus trees whose pale trunks stand out against the famed red earth of central Australia.

As the sun sets, darkness tempered only by moonlight descends.

One of the only things missing from the train is a glass roof to allow passengers to take in the splendor of the star-splashed Outback night sky, unpolluted by any artificial light.