As the long, hot days of an Aussie summer kick in and the pace of life eases up, SBS’s Slow Summer is here.
Earlier this year, SBS introduced Australian audiences to a new genre of TV with The Ghan. Some labelled it ‘the most boring thing on television’, ‘a train to nowhere’… but others just couldn’t look away. It had its haters, but the Australian public asked for more.
So SBS is here with more. Four times more Slow.
Every Sunday in January 2019, SBS has scheduled four marathon slow TV events: Three hours each in primetime on SBS and streaming live on SBS On Demand; the full journeys of up to 18 hours will be shown on SBS VICELAND the following week.
Slow TV has been called immersive, hypnotising, an alternative to the noise, an escape from the busy pace of modern life. For SBS, it’s also an innovative way to explore lesser-known parts of Australia’s history like no one else would do.
The Indian Pacific: Australia’s Longest Train Journey
Sunday 6 January, 7.30pm, SBS (3 hours)
Saturday 12 January, all day, SBS VICELAND
Crossing Australia from Perth to Sydney, the pivotal part played by the transcontinental railway line in linking the far-flung west coast with the eastern states is explored, including how the rail impacted Indigenous Australians on the Nullabor Plain, the new colony of South Australia, and the Indigenous trade route of the Blue Mountains.
Source: SBS
The Kimberley Cruise: Australia’s Last Great Wilderness
Sunday 13 January, 7.30pm, SBS (3 hours)
Saturday 19 January, all day, SBS VICELAND
Travelling by boat from Broome to Darwin this route in Australia’s Top End is a breathtaking coastline of open seas, bays, basins, islands and estuaries. This area is dubbed ‘Australia’s last great wilderness’ and surprising stories of multicultural history abound – from Aboriginal cave paintings to Japanese pearlers, a Filipino missionary to a proposed Jewish refuge from the Nazis, Vietnamese boat people, WWII bombings, shipwrecks and modern-day mining.
Source: SBS
All Aboard! The Canal Trip
Sunday 20 January, 7.30pm, SBS (2 hours)
A barge travels through one of Britain’s most historic waterways, the Kenet and Avon Canal, featuring the serenity, sights and sounds of wildlife along the way.
Source: SBS
North to South
Sunday 27 January, 2019, 7.30pm, SBS (3 hours)
Saturday 2 February, all day, SBS VICELAND
A spectacular overland route from Auckland on New Zealand’s north island, down to the south by way of multiple forms of transport including railways, sailing and driving. The city gives way to rolling pastures, volcanic extremes, tranquil waterways, the rough Otago high country and grandeur of the Southern Alps and Milford Sound.
But wait... we have one more slow treat up our sleeves.
Source: SBS
Every week we still get emails and phone calls at SBS from people so taken with The Ghan that they want a repeat. As always, we have listened and are ready to bring The Ghan back to Aussie TV screens:
The Ghan (Encore)
Saturday 26 January, all day, SBS VICELAND
This is the 2979 kilometre rail journey from Adelaide to Darwin that kicked off Australia’s slow TV craze. The Ghan tells the story of how the development of central Australia can be attributed to local Indigenous communities as well as early immigrants, including the Afghan cameleers The Ghan is named after.
Slow Summer; four marathon slow TV events, 3 hours each in primetime on SBS and streaming live on SBS On Demand, starts 6 January 2019.
The ghan Source: SBS Pashto
Join the conversation on social #SlowSummer
Taking it slow at SBS:
At 17 hours, The Ghan is bigger than ever before!
