A sunburnt country via the Ghan
Tuesday we wake up to lush grassland, arbours of trees and rocky outcrops. By Katherine, 320 kms south-east of Darwin, we are in the tropics. We take a cruise on the swollen Katherine River through the ancient limestone Katherine Gorge. On one of those awesome, crusty, old rock faces, we gaze at primitive Aboriginal paintings.
At our last meal, we clap our chefs, Nick Gunn and Marie Eckermann for the quality and variety of the menu, so important to enjoy the train experience.
As I glimpse Darwin on the horizon crossing the great railway bridge spanning the Elisabeth River, it occurs to me that I have found the country of Dorothea Mackellar’s poem and I hum… “I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains, of ragged mountain ranges, of droughts and flooding rains.’’ I am exhilarated. I have seen it all – a far horizon, flat as a pancake and “her beauty and her terror’’, too. As she pulls into Darwin after our epic three day journey I resonate with the thought – “The wide, brown land for me”!
Luxury train travel in Platinum class (added to the Ghan in 2008) costs $2979 per person, which keeps it an elite experience – and what you pay for is spacious, modern accommodation and personalise, first-class service.
For more information see www.gsr.com.au.
Freelance travel journalist, Nadine Williams travelled as a guest of Great Southern Rail. Her website www.nadinewilliams.com.au contains more travel adventures in Australia and France.
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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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