It seems that the whole of Australia is now waking up to something that grey nomads have known for a really long time … the Outback is fascinating!
On Sunday, SBS broadcast a 17-hour long TV show called ‘The Ghan: Australia’s Greatest Train Journey’. The network’s first foray into so-called ‘slow TV’ effectively involved puttig a camera on the front of the iconic train and hitting ‘record’.
And the verdict … people loved it!
Hundreds of thousands of viewers tuned in to see near endless footage of a train track, desolate Outback, and the occasional text-based explanation about various points of interest.
The Digital Trends publication reports that an abridged three-hour version of the famous train ride, which runs between Adelaide in the south and Darwin in the north, was broadcast last week, but the overwhelmingly positive response persuaded SBS to take things a step further and broadcast a 17-hour special.
It is unclear whether the broadcaster will now go the whole way and show the entire 54-hour journey across 2,979 kilometres.
“It got the nation talking, trending nationally on social media, and recorded an average of 583,000 viewers,” SBS said of its three-hour version. “That made it the highest performing SBS program in the past 12 months.”
The Navigator has been taking photographs as we travel for 15 yrs + love looking back thru them.
We watched all of the SBS program. In 2015 we went on the Ghan from Darwin to Adelaide and really enjoyed it. Then last year we drove some of the Stuart Highway from south to north from Brisbane and visited Uluru and Alice Springs and crossed the Oodnadatta Track and the Plenty Highway. We love the outback country with its colours and landscape.With a dashcam we sometimes sit down and relive a trip we have completed.
This sounds an amazing film to watch, do you think it will be put on DVD for sale. I live in Uk but would love to watch it. We visited Uluru and Alice Springs during a guided tour in 2016 and was awed by the outback. Would love to watch this.
One of my Bucket List Trips Was to travel on the Ghan, Have done the Indian Pacific and the Trans Sibrian and the Japan Bullet Train but after watching the Ghan for 3 hrs it has been taken of the list.SO BORING