The Ghan

Our trip on "The Ghan", the famous train that runs from Adelaide all the way across Australia to Darwin, was planned as one of the highlights of the whole journey. At this time of year it only makes one run a week, so if we wanted to break the trip and see the Red Centre we had to get off at Alice Springs and go on to Darwin four days later by air. Our schedule didn't allow for a full week in Alice, and anyway the heat would probably have wiped us out completely. The forecasts the last couple of days were for 43 degrees and the locals reckoned it was nearer 46. The train of course was fully air-conditioned and the height of luxury. We were in Gold standard, thanks to many of those who attended our party and are hopefully reading this account. That gave us a reasonably sized double cabin with en-suite shower and toilet - just a little smaller than a Northlink cabin - all our meals in a very smart restaurant car, full bar service, and a fantastic view of the outback rolling past our windows for 26 hours.



After we passed Port Augusta, about 5 hours in, it was really empty - the occasional road, a few emus, kangaroos in the distance towards dusk and early morning, but surprisingly large numbers of sheep and cattle. They don't call them ranches here, they are sheep stations or cattle stations, and the biggest one, which is in South Australia, is bigger than Belgium. In fact it was nearly lunchtime on the second day before we left South Australia and crossed into the Northern Territory. When we stepped off in Alice the train was only halfway on its way to Darwin.

Can you spot Norma in this view of the dining car? Much of the interest was in our fellow passengers who we got talking to at mealtimes and in the bar. There was a honeymoon couple who were engineers, based in Sydney but travelling all over the region together setting up and trouble-shooting new power stations. Another older couple lived near Melbourne in an area with lots of expensive holiday homes. He worked as a general handyman looking after them. She had been on several camping trips to the Red Centre and had persuaded him he should see it too. There were two ladies from Darwin going home after a shopping trip to the big cities, and an American who claimed to work in the US Embassy in Moscow. He was a bit strange and we were convinced he must be CIA (probably we've been reading too many thrillers) but we kept running into him in the Red Centre where he was on another tour bus which we kept meeting. But more of the Red Centre next time. For now many thanks to everyone who helped to make this part of the trip possible.