Arrival of the Ghan

DAY 253

If you read on, it is at your own choice, as we are still in Darwin things aren’t as exciting as they usually are, so things may seem to be a little dull, at the moment.

We have always written the blog just as it happens, never putting in things to make it sound better, or to impress, it is a factual document of what is happening each day on our trip of a life time.

We have noticed that our readership is definitely slipping as this morning 18th July we have had only 1433 hits this month, we work on roughly 100 hits a day as a good guide.

The only positive thing is that we do intend to leave Darwin on Thursday 23rd July after our self imposed break and continue the journey, but at the moment we are still planning which way to go.

We drive in to Darwin about mid day to have yet another game of mini golf, we need to get it over and done with as so far the last two games have been a draw, so it was competition time again.

We arrived at the course which is a full sized Golf Course with Mini Golf attached and a big notice says the course is closed for a corporate function, I say to Caroline “I bet the mini Golf is still open,” and it is. Still same course different day and you do start to get used to it idiosyncrasies, we both play well, although Caroline not as well as usual, Caroline goes around in 52 and I did it in 45, that’s another competition closed out for another day.

We drive out of the city on route to the Rail Passenger Terminal for The Ghan, this railway journey is definitely one we want to do, but a few factors come in to it. At the moment we just need to find out when she is due in, as we know it leaves tomorrow (Saturday at 9.00am).

The passenger terminal is sort of in the middle of nowhere, right next to the Freight Terminal is architecturally well done, but it’s like a ghost town. We start yakking to a fella that worked there and he said the Ghan is in twice a week and that’s is it, I ask him what other trains come in to here, and he says that’s it, “Only The Ghan.”

The place is so immaculate I can’t see the tidying up keeping him that busy. He tells us the Ghan is due in at 6.30 tonight and will leave at 9.00am in the morning so we can come along and take our photographs in between these times.

He is exceptionally helpful and we thank him for his time, we make a plan to be back here just before she arrives tonight.

Caroline will have to do with the camera lenses she is left with at the moment as her everyday lens, which would have been ideal to photograph The Ghan is still away, much to her disgust.

We get back to Howard Springs its about 3.30 and it won’t belong before we are going out again, I have a short snooze and Caroline did some Sudoku, edited the blog and when we got our ars*s in to gear at about 5.00pm Caroline started to cook the chicken for the Curry.

With the curry finished in the nick of time, we put it in a breathable container grab our cameras and hop in the truck, on route back to the Rail Passenger Terminal down towards East Arm.

As we are pulling in you get a quick look down the track and she hasn’t arrived, so we park the Patrol and scurry in to the Passenger Terminal.

There are definitely more cars than when we were here a few hours ago, a couple of Limo’s and quite a few coaches which they let park on the tarmac right next to the track, so as the Patrons get off the Ghan they immediately get on their awaiting coach, how civilised.

6.30, 6.40, 6.45 an announcement over the tannoy, the Ghan has just entered the freight yard, and if you look down the track you will be able to see her head lights, she is pulling 27 Carriages with a total weight of 1327 Tonnes. There seems to be a little buzz of excitement in the air, but I am not sure if that is just us or if they people waiting are as excited to see the Ghan as we are.

Extracted from Google:

The Ghan is a passenger train operating between Adelaide, Alice Springs, and Darwin on the Adelaide-Darwin railway

The Passenger Rail Terminal

in Australia. Operated by Great Southern Railway and with locomotives provided by Pacific National, the journey takes 48 hours to travel the 2,979 kilometres (1850 miles). The service's name is an abbreviated version of its previous nickname The Afghan Express, which comes from the Afghan camel trains that trekked the same route before the advent of the railway

But now it is dusk, my Cybershot will be pretty useless in this light, so Caroline makes some adjustments to the ISO of her camera, which means that she will still be able to shoot when it gets darker.

Blimey this bloke is taking his time bringing her in and with the dazzle of the headlights you just couldn’t see the engine.

I expected the engine to be as the brochure, huge, which it was, and beautifully painted in its red livery, but it wasn’t, may be that one was for the photo shoot only as the monster pulling the 27 carriages was a very dirty industrial looking engine that was quite a disappointment. Unless of course, while The Ghan is on its journey, she may succumb to the dusty environment that she travels through to get here, much the same as us really.

Still the carriages were fantastic, which is what counts, and on tip toes just about managed to see some of the inside.

The Carriages class goes Red Class (Plebs), Gold Class, (Got money bit cautious with it) and Platinum, (Got lots of cash and not afraid to wave it around) The Gold Restaurant car looks fantastic. Seriously though we were really pleased to see it and watch the people get off this famous train.

We get back to camp, warm our curry up and do some rice, as we are going to take advantage of Darwin’s facilities tonight and go to the Pictures (again) to see Sunshine Cleaning.

We get to the cinema at about 8.50, wondering if we will be too late to get a ticket, as Sunshine Cleaning is a newly released film. The young girl selling the tickets tells us she really wants to see the film, we said we were wondering if we would get a ticket tonight and she tells us we will be the only two people so far tonight to buy them for that film, and in fact on opening night on Wednesday, nobody brought tickets to see it.

We go in another couple come in and sit a couple of rows back and the film rolls, personally though it was an odd story I thought it was a great film and well worth a watch, and Caroline enjoyed it as well, so thumbs up to Sunshine Cleaning.

We get back to camp late, it is all quiet here, the other campers have all gone to bed so we hit the sack, until tomorrow bloggers.

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