We wondered why the train from Adelaide to Darwin was called The Ghan. Here's what we learned... Ghan is short for Afghan!
The Afghans came from Afghanistan, but were primarily from Pakistan. They took camels into the interior of Australia. Camels were brought to Australia back in 1840 to 1910 to be used as pack animals. Anything that needed to be bought into the harsh desert climate was delivered by camel.
Today, there are over 650,000 feral camels in the desert here! Ironically, they are now being rounded up and shipped to countries in the middle east. They have caused a lot of problems because there are so many. Remember when I wrote that there were only 220,000 people in NT? Too many camels and not enough food for them.
No comments:
Post a Comment