Australia’s famous cross-country trains enter a new era of luxury

When passengers make themselves exceptionally comfortable inside the new Aurora Australis suites aboard long-distance trains such as The Ghan, they’ll do so amid luxury not seen on the nation’s rails since the days of specially outfitted carriages reserved for touring royalty.

There’s a solid financial rationale behind the launch of such contemporary opulence of train interiors, created by the Adelaide-founded design house Woods Bagot for the Journey Beyond-operated Indian Pacific, Great Southern and, of course, The Ghan.

They’re a means of attracting higher-spending, high-end luxury-seeking international and domestic passengers willing to part with fares from about $8000 a person for premium suites, which include private butler service, double bathroom vanities and specialised dining experiences.

But, interiors aside, what’s also evolved dramatically has been Journey Beyond’s array and quality of world-class, if not world-leading, “off-train” experiences.

These are offered to passengers outside the trains on multi-day journeys and range from elaborate and convivial starlit dinners beside the Indian Pacific on the Nullarbor, to visits deep inside the vintage cellars of leading Barossa Valley winemakers.

“These curated moments invite guests to step off the carriage and into the landscape, offering exclusive access to some of Australia’s most iconic and remote destinations,” says Justine Lally, Journey Beyond’s executive general manager of marketing.

“Whether it is a signature dinner under the stars at the Alice Springs Telegraph Station or meeting an Indigenous artist and learning about a Dreamtime story, we enable guests to experience these destinations in a way they simply couldn’t do on their own.”

Indeed, Australis and Aurora suite passengers travelling north on the almost 3000-kilometre journey on The Ghan between Adelaide and Darwin will be offered a grand helicopter flight above all 13 gorges of the Northern Territory’s Nitmiluk National Park (also known as Katherine Gorge).

On landing, they’ll be served a glass of Bollinger as they contemplate one of the Top End’s most spectacular ancient landscapes.

Not to be left out, all passengers on a new four-day northbound itinerary of The Ghan will savour a new signature dinner early next year created by chef Nicola Palmer and sommelier Warrick Duthy, of the respected Watervale Hotel in South Australia’s Clare Valley.

Hundreds of passengers will experience the couple’s renowned holistic and ethical approach to fine food and wine which Palmer and Duthy developed at their historic pub.

Nearer to where The Ghan will stop for this fine feed, passengers will be treated by Palmer, Duthy and their Watervale Hotel team to an off-train, right-royal dinner inside a separate specially adapted rustic woolshed.

Then it’ll be back on the train, perhaps for a nightcap (more Bolly, anyone?) before bedtime, ensconced in one of those poshest of posh suites, or one of the other still premium compartments, as The Ghan readies itself for the red heart. Royalty never had it so good.

The writer travelled as a guest of Journey Beyond. See journeybeyondrail.com.au; watervalehotel.com.au