Champagne and Red sunsets

Unlike the Indian Pacific where most of the time is spent on the train, the four-day, three-night, 2979km Ghan Expedition from Darwin to Adelaide through the Red Centre of Australia revolves around all-day, offtrain excursions.

When it was launched 90 years ago, The Ghan was known as the Afghan Express, named for the 19th-century Afghan cameleers who blazed a trail through the country’s remote interior. Today, the twin diesel-electric locomotives and the 38 silver carriages on the 903-metre, 1700-tonne train still bear the emblem of an Afghan riding a camel.

Our first excursion was a cruise on the Katherine River in the Northern Territory’s magnificent 292,000-hectare Nitmiluk National Park. We meandered up spectacular, steep-sided sandstone canyons carved by the river over millions of years, and viewed aboriginal rock paintings still intact after thousands of years.

Indigenous art in the region dates back 40,000 years, the oldest known art-form on the planet.

The deeply-furrowed faces of the towering rocks gave me a sense of the ancientness and dignity of this land. I understood the indigenous Jawoyn people’s veneration for their Mother Earth.

At Alice Springs we learnt about the history, geology, flora and fauna of Australia’s most famous Outback town, known as Mpwante by the Arrernte people.

Alice Springs began life in 1871 as a repeater station along the Overland Telegraph Line. The town is 200km south of the geographical centre of Australia – halfway between Darwin and Adelaide, literally the Red Centre of Australia.

We climbed Cassia Hill to a lookout with breathtaking views of the Alice Valley and surrounding mountains. The rust-stained ranges were the sandy bottom of an inland sea 900 million years ago.

Simpson’s Gap, a deep gash in the West MacDonnell Ranges, dates back 60 million years. Known to the Arrernte as Rungutjirpa, the gap is the mythological home of their giant goanna ancestors and the site of Dreaming trails.

The cuisine on The Ghan was exceptional every day but our elegant barbecue dinner under the stars at the historic Alice Springs Telegraph Station was an absolute highlight.

After dinner, an astronomer armed with a laser beam conducted a tour of the night sky. Later, we

JUSTINE TYERMAN The surreal landscape of the Breakaways.

PHOTOS: GREAT SOUTHERN RAIL/SUPPLIED The Ghan crosses the Elizabeth River en route to Katherine.

JUSTINE TYERMAN My comfy bed and complimentary postcards on The Ghan.

Cruising up the spectacular Katherine Gorge in the Nitmiluk National Park.