The Ghan Railway gives the appearance of a bygone era, and it does a good job especially when you realize that the second half of the line was not completed until, as recently as 2006 and whole thing has only been around 40 years.
So there we are surrounded by the elderly and the Asians. We were definitely the only ones under 30, making the long and beautiful journey across the central outback stretch of Australia. However I wouldn’t have wanted to do the trip any other way than via the rail; the pace was slow and peaceful and the stops along the way provided a great way to see the sites. Okay I must refine that statement a bit, I could have gone for a sleeper car, it didn’t have had to be the platinum or gold carriages, even the red car sleeper would have been amazing. 15 hours of sitting in a chair is a bit much. Thankfully we broke the 54-hour trip up into two parts, Adelaide to Alice Springs and Alice Springs to Darwin, five days later. We boarded the second to last car of the silver train, car R, at 1:00pm and settled into our larger than airplane sized red seats and the conductor announced we would be leaving shortly. As soon as we sat down we realized that there was an empty seat behind us, looking across the aisle, we saw a couple in their early 30’s turn the seat in front of them around, and start to “unpack,” they had definitely done this before. We soon did the same and we able to stretch out on the two rows of seats now facing each other. The train pulled out of the station and we were ready, camera in hand poised with anticipation to see a Kangaroo. The first thing we saw was not a Kangaroo but the Barossa wine valley, the area just outside Adelaide where the wine we had the night before came from. Then we entered what local Australians call the Bush, the area just outside the city, the outback would not come until the morning the train conductor told us, so we played cards, read, ate cranberries and almonds and finally it was time for bed. Just before the lights were turned off a young French kid, about our age, who had walked past our row several times throughout the afternoon finally stopped and asked us if we purchased both rows of seats, when we answered no he went into a long broken English diatribe about how he needed to sleep next to this girl, who we figured was his girlfriend. Being a young couple ourselves and not wanting karma to come back on us we let them have the seat, which the kid quickly turned around and his female French companion raced back to sit with him. Resettling ourselves we fell asleep wishing we had more room and that the French pillow talk in front of us would go to sleep too but…glad to have given a couple the chance to sit together. The next morning we woke up to the outback and no couple in front of us. They had left their stuff but were gone for the rest of the morning, not wanting to move their things we were left with our two seats and an empty forward seat that we wish we had. Although we took many wonderful pictures and learned that travelers from Afghanistan were the first people to occupy central Australia, other than the Aborigines, where they travel across the outback on camels, which they eventually let go when they left causing Australia to have wild camels today. There are also wild houses as well as rabbits, the rabbits have actually caused quite a problem, since they are not native they have very little predators, reproduce quickly and eat much of if not all the vegetation in sight. As we disembarked in Alice Springs the young “couple” was not together and the girl looked quite upset with her one night stand male companion and Jimmy was upset that we had let these two have our seats when they weren’t even together. Looking back now karma did get us anyways, in Alice Springs we were robbed! After checking into our hotel, the Desert Rose Inn, Jimmy and I ran to book a tour to Uluru or Ayres Rock for the next day. When the tour was secured we grabbed dinner and went for a walk, which was nice after sitting on the train for a day and a half. The next morning we were picked up for our tour at 6 AM not to return until midnight.
Uluru was AMAZING! Again Jimmy and I were the youngest people, by far, on the trip, but the grandma’s loved us. It was a five-hour drive to our first stop of the day, Mt. Connor, which looks very similar to Uluru but is much smaller. After visiting the Aboriginal Cultural Center and having a packed lunch we went to see the Olgas and then finally Uluru, which we walked around and saw different cultural sights and learned that Uluru was a meeting place for the Aboriginal people, to come together during big festivals, during rainy season and in times of hardship. After our long day the tour company provided us with a champagne dinner and we watched the sun set over the large rock. Jimmy read that we should take a picture every five minutes, while the sun was setting to see the rock changing colors, if think we have pictures for every five seconds but you can never have to many pictures. The whole time we were in the National Park we did not see a single Kangaroo, unfortunately we hit one with our tour bus on the way back to Alice Springs that would be the only Kangaroo sighting in all of Australia unfortunately. The next several days, in Alice Springs, were spent by the pool, reading or hiking. The town was not very big and when the Ghan arrived back in Alice Spring after five days Jimmy and I were ready to get back on. Even more so when we discovered that we had been robbed for $200 US while we were in Alice Springs, an unfortunate way to end our stay there. Once back on the train we knew the drill and settled in for another long haul north to Darwin. We decided we would disembark in Katharine for what was called a “whistle stop tour” which was where the train had to stop and there was time for passengers to get off for a couple of hours and see the sights. Jimmy and I went kayaking along the Katharine Gorge, with fresh water crocodiles, flying foxes and VERY VERY LARGE SPIDERS! After paddling for about an hour we got out on shore to have a look around. When we decided to get back in our boat a large white and black spider had taken up residence on my paddle an we could not get it off, Jimmy was brave and a little amazed by the spider and he was finally able to coax it off the paddle, we paddled back quickly not wanting to miss the bus back to the train and to get away from the spider.
Darwin was very relaxing and hot we went to the beach however Darwin’s beaches are nothing to really brag about, the tide goes very far out and the beach always looks a little muddy. We also went to an outdoor market and had tasty Chinese food and a chocolate crepe. We also frequented Darwin’s Warf area where they recently built a man made wave pool and beach area that was pleasant. There was also cheap food and ice cream down by the wharf. On our last day in Darwin we went to the Litchfield National Park, where we hiked around and swam in three waterfalls. It was a nice way to end our time in the Northern Territory, spending time outdoors, which is what they do there. The next day we flew back to Sydney where we continued to explore the city.
Even though we had been in Sydney for about a week at the beginning of our trip there was still so much to see, in our last days in Sydney we spent time down at Darling Harbor and up around the Kings Cross area were our hostel was. On our last day in Sydney we went to a yoga class and got all stretched out for our 8 and half our trip to Singapore. The next morning we woke up around 6:30AM to what looked like another world. Outside everything looked red like mars and the air tasted like chalk, which had entered our room through the open window. We got ready and as we were checking out of the hostel we found out that Sydney was being hit by a very large dust storm that was moving from central Australia south eastward and had covered Sydney in a layer of dust overnight. At the airport we were not sure if we would be able to leave but our Singapore Airlines flight took off on time, to my dismay. Seated in row 51! The plane sat on the run way for 20 minutes waiting to take off, the wind blew the plane from side to side as we anticipated the take off. As the plane became airborne I looked at Jimmy and he looked a little frightened, so this was not just me being a nervous flyer. After it was safe to move about the cabin a free round of Singapore Slings were distributed and we were off to Singapore!
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