A sunburnt country via the Ghan
When I was a young child visiting Grandma, the sweetest moments were when the train would clickety-clack past the front gate along the Islington line. I would swing from the gate, all bobby socks and long plaits, waving furiously to the engine driver.
Those memories, the sights, the sounds, the smells, and the sheer joy of trains, flood back now as I board a mammoth, historic train, The Ghan, at the platform at Keswick Station, Adelaide.
The stationmaster blows his whistle and shouts “All Aboard’’ we begin the train journey of a lifetime – travelling by rail to Darwin – from south to north across our strange, intriguing continent.
My step-daughter is marrying in Pine Creek, 200 kilometres south of Darwin and I admit I was tempted to fly Hop on, Fly over the land and hop off in city slicker style three hours later.
Tags: alice springs, katherine gorge, macdonnell ranges, south australian mid north, the ghan, train journeys
travellers tales | nadine 05/06/2010
4 Comments to “A sunburnt country via the Ghan”
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By Rosalie Kramer, 28/06/2010 @ 4:08 pm
I have just read this article in the National seniors magazine 50 Something.
There are two facts that you have got wrong.
The train passes through Pimba not Kimba.
You crossed the Finke River south of Alice Springs long before arriving in my home town of more than 40 years. So the “pond of water in the riverbed of sand” must have been the Charles Creek hardly the wide sandy Finke.
I’m sure Great Southern Rail was pleased with the write up on service and accommodation.
Rosalie
By nadine, 28/06/2010 @ 8:25 pm
Hi Rosalie, We actually saw the pools of water while on the bus tour through the town of Alice Springs and it should read Todd River. The bus tour guide made a big thing of this rare occurrence. We also loved Alice Springs and had too little time. I wrote about the Alice 10 years ago and it was this article which won me the Kendall Airlines Travel Writers’ state prize – it was my first travel article, so naturally I just kept writing travel as well as my usual reporter’s role at The Advertiser. The Kimba/Pimba mixup was a mistake – I noted the time we were in Pimba on the map provided on the train, and couldn’t have had my glasses on. I transferred the information into my note book incorrectly as Kimba (not knowing exactly where Kimba was or I would have known it was wrong). Sincerely, Nadine.
By francoise, 01/08/2010 @ 3:44 am
Hello Nadine . you are a very good reporter I would’like to visit in Australia maybe one day I will surprise you
Françoise
by for now
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