"The Ghan"

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October 25, 2008

With three alarms (Joe’s phone, the clock in the room, and a wake-up call) to assist us, we made it down to the curb at 7 AM for our taxi to the train station in Darwin. We are riding “The Ghan” in the Red Kangaroo Car to Alice Springs. The Ghan bills itself as one of the great train rides of the world. The Ghan name and symbol, the camel and its handler, is in recognition of the pioneering Afghan cameleers in Australia. They used to use camels as transportation from Adelaide into the center of the country. When the train was built they released about 1000 camels into the desert, so now there are feral camels in Australia. We haven't seen any, but have had plenty of opportunities to ride on them at camel farms.

We had a stroke of luck and got seats that have extra legroom. We can’t even touch the seat in front of us with our legs stretched out. Makes it a bit difficult to use the fold down tray on the seat in front of us, but we won't use them. Our seats must be where they welded the car together. We will be sleeping in these reclining seats tonight. There are showers, decent bathrooms, and a nice dining car where we ate tonight. There are sleeping cabins, but they are very expensive. We paid very little for our fares as we got the ‘Super Rail Saver” rates in September.

The music that was played in the car today was Eagles, John Denver, Willie Nelson, and a LOT of Roy Orbison. We also were treated to a long commentary on the history of the Ghan and information about its route. Not being sarcastic, it was all ok.

We left Darwin at 9 AM and arrived in the town of Katherine around 12:40 PM where we had a five- hour stop. There were several tours one could take and we chose to take a Katherine Gorge cruise in Nitmiluk National Park. It was interesting and Joe got a few new birds, but we’ve been on so many amazing rivers that we weren’t as enamored with the scenery as other people on the tour. Joe did get to try out the didgeridoo on the boat and he managed to get a musical sound out of it. We took one boat to where it could go no further due to rocks, then walked on a path about 15 minutes with more rock paintings (none nearly as fine as in Kakadu) then took another boat into the Katherine Gorge.

Looking out the train window today was something. We saw a few wallabies, lots of termite mounds, eucalyptus trees the entire time, and very little else. The farther south we go, the dryer it looks. The earth is slowly turning red. Since we left Katherine we have seen no signs of people.

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Photos

Katherine River
This is a crocodile trap.