Day 13 - The Ghan
One of the highlights of our Australia trip: Travelling on the legendary Ghan. This train runs from Darwin to Adelaide, all the way from North to South. We could catch it only on the second leg of the journey, from Alice (Springs) to Adelaide.
We had the pleasure of travelling in “golden kangaroo” class, which means that you have your own compartment for the travel, a lounge car and also dinner and breakfast in the restaurant car.
The train took off right on time, working its way through the Outback, over Finke river (the oldest river on earth according to Guinness), which was dried out (normal for this time of the year) and south towards Coober Pedy, which it passes in about 40 km distance.
Having a shower and later, sleeping, in a train is an interesting
experience. If you want to travel from Alice Springs to Adelaide fast, take a plane, if you want to go there in style, use The Ghan.
The route from Darwin to Adelaide is one track only, which seems to be silly to me, because the train has to stop on loop rails all the time to let oncoming traffic pass by (mostly freight trains, which have priority over passenger trains in Australia). However, there don’t seem to be that much trains on the track to justify a second track in parallel. Saw a number of three-engine pulled, fifty+ car freight trains. Sweet.
During dinner we had a great sunset over the desert, at some point all colours of the rainbow over a black horizon were visible. Also met a nice couple from Denmark during the reception (where Kristin and I tried to get away as far as possible from our fellow German/Swiss travellers) and had a nice dinner. The husband used to travel as much as Kristin does and they swapped stories from going to the Middle-East.
adelaide alice springs australia outback the ghan travel
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