5 Dollars - Elizabeth II 4th Portrait - Adelaide to Darwin Railway - Silver Proof

The Adelaide to Darwin railway was not a 2004 novelty — it was the completion of a project first proposed in the 1850s, when South Australia was still a British colony. The line had been partially built, abandoned, and politically resurrected so many times over 150 years that its final completion became a genuine national occasion. The last spike was driven in 2003, making this coin among the most immediately commemorative issues the Royal Australian Mint has produced — struck within months of the line's operational debut.

The full 2,979-kilometre route through the Red Centre had long been called the "Ghan," after the Afghan cameleers who once supplied the interior before rail.