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 travelDay 12 - Ayers Rock to Alice Springs
If you want to see the sunrise over Uluru, you must get up early. Really early. Sunrise is at 6:30 and we set the alarm to 5:00. Only that we messed up Queensland and N.T. time and it went off at 4:30. Ugh.Drove to the “Sunrise over Uluru” spot. Again shot lots of pictures. Sunrise is more exciting than sunset, so if you only have a few days like we do, do not bother with sunset, it should be better viewing this at the Olgas.
Kristin wanted to do the base hike (10 km) but I objected. We settled on a ranger-guided tour around part of the Rock. Ah, and we did not climb it. Everywhere around are big signs that the Rock is a sacred site and the aboriginies object to tourists climbing the rock. So I decided to be culturally aware and respect the feelings of the natives (that and the prospect of climing a ~ 350 m steep rock slope in 34 degree celsius dry heat…).
Around midday we waved farewell to the Rock and started the drive through the outback to Alice Springs. Still no kangaroos and emus. We saw a few wild cows, though. And of course, the famous australian Road Trains (that is a regular truck pulling two more trailers. Say 35-45m of truck to overtake. And they are allowed to go 130 kph, which they do.
In Alice we went to the famous Overlanders Steak house. Tried and failed the 700g rump steak. Kristin was more sensible in having the six meat (kangaroo, emu, beef, crocodile, camel and barramundi) platter.
alice springs austalia ayers rock outback travel uluru