Luxury travellers are swapping planes for trains – here’s why

After Katherine, the landscape begins to shift. The soil blushes deeper, and for longer, after miles of low bush, the odd purple tree blossoming in what the local Jawoyn call Bangkarrang, the most pleasant of their five seasons.

It’s early May and we’re barely 10 hours into what the itinerary in our cabin specifies will be a 72-hour, 2979-kilometre trip from Darwin to Adelaide on The Ghan. Maybe it’s the orange light blaring from the right as the sun sets that makes the shift perceptible. Or maybe it’s the signal bars on my phone, dwindling as the light deepens, until they finally flare out along with the sun. Either way, we are that rarest of things: out of touch with the world; in touch with something else. This place.