Been traveling around the country lately - 6 states in 4 weeks! So it's nice to come home & not worry about getting to airports on time.
Started in early March with a business trip to Adelaide, dinner at the National Wine Centre Firday evening with guest speaker John Bowe & an invite to the Clipsal 500 on the Sat in a corporate pavilion - going to be hard going back to general admission stands after this.
Invite included a tour though the Erubus team pits & a pit walk prior to the main race.
Departed Adelaide on the Sunday & as wife wanted to do the Ghan train trip, we boarded for Darwin. Left @ midday (Gold Class) & arrived in Darwin 5pm Tues - 3 days 2 nights. Trip includes all food, drinks & off train excursions.
1st stop on Mon was Marla (Rail siding NW SA) for a 6am light breaky watching an outback sunrise. Next was Alice Springs in the arvo, we took the "Alice Explorer" tour of the town - not that impressed with the town & many high steel fences (some with barb wire) surrounding properties.
Tues AM saw us in Katherine, our tour there was the Nitmiluk (Katherine) Gorge boat trip
A few bits of info that I wasn't aware of:
In ADL we stayed at the Intercontinental which is next door to station - great, get up have breaky & wander next door to board. Nup, GSR have their own station complex @ Parklands, a $15 taxi ride from CBD. Ghan is too long for a normal station & needs to be split up into 2/3 to fit. Our train was 860mtrs long, for a full load it goes out to over 1km.
The Ghan is made up of 4 sectors & each has it's own dining/galley, lounge & 5 pax cars (each has 9 double cabins). We left ADL with 60? in our sector, but 40? left in Alice, a couple got on, so between Alice & Darwin we had 16 - plenty of room to party :-)
Coming back would have been a different situation, they were 100% full as there was a cruise ship unload for a rail trip south. Overall a very enjoyable trip (but $$$$), probably only do the trip once, although we were discussing driving to Perth & bring the car back to SYD by the Indian Pacific - again nup, GSR don't transport cars between ADL & SYD any longer. Stupid NSW have hit GSR with a massive increase in fees to handle cars in SYD & GSR aren't prepared to pass this cost onto customers.
The crew are fantastic & very willing to assist in any way possible.
In Darwin we stayed at the waterfront precinct for 3 nights & had a room overlooking the bay, maybe 1/2 km from CBD but pleasant walk. Unfortunatley our trip was in the wet season so the humidity was uncomfortable. Did the touristy stuff, inc the Hop-on Hop Off bus but later in day got caught in a rainstorm & bus wasn't very rain proof - even driver had plastic over his dash to stop getting wet & it was an old double decker!!
2 weeks later an emergency trip to Tassie for relo's funeral, caught up with Daz for an enjoyable coffee on his balcony overlooking valley, week later busn trip to Brisbane & Gold Coast - yep during the floods although we were lucky & didn't get affected by any road closures.
John Bowe & DW at dinner - both come from Devonport TAS
Doing it tought in corporate pavillion :-)
Erebus team pit tour
Hotwheels tent - guess the girls are there to get the dads in?
Testing video from my Google Drive
Super trucks @ Clipsal
ClipsalTrucks2.mp4 - Google DriveVimeo - pit tour
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ClipsalPits on VimeoGSR lounge waiting to board Ghan after checking in - very relaxed with our pre-departure drinks!!
All loaded & waiting to go - was planning to drop bags in cabin & get off & take some pics but as all pax were onboard our car lass had locked to doors. Cabin is about size of double bed, 3 seater lougne by day & upper & lower bunks for sleeping
Sunrise in the outback in Marla
Middle of train looking toward rear.
Lounge enjoying an arvo drink (or more)
Loco's - interesting that in all the promo pics you see people next to loco, this was as close as pax can normally get!
Dining car - ask the crew to take a pic & Jessie insists getting in on the selfie!!
Nitmiluk Gorge
Just trying to imbed video from Vimeo - give you some idea of length of train
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GhanMarla on VimeoDarwin Hotel in the waterfront district
View from hotel room overlooking bay
Dinner in one of the many alfresco restaurants surrounding our hotel
Ordered ribs, managed to get through 2 of the 3 before they beat me.
