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| Alice
Springs - Melbourne |
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4 days - 3 nights or 5 days - 4 nights
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HE HISTORIC GHAN DEPARTS Darwin
for Adelaide twice weekly and you can now join this famous |
train in Central Australia at Alice Springs... spend a couple of nights in Adelaide, then continue your journey to Melbourne on The Overland.
Your departure from the Alice is overlooked
by the MacDonnell Ranges, whose ancient spine was once as
high as the Himalayas. The ranges preside over Alice Springs
as a constant reminder of its edgy relationship with the desert
and form an imposing backdrop for the Alice Springs Desert
Park, about five minutes out of town. Along the track, you'll
see blooming the comically alien-looking Sturt's desert peas;
above, a wedge-tailed eagle soars at full stretch. |
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About 150 km out of Alice, the Ghan crosses the Finke River
Bridge, passing over the dry bed of one of the world's oldest
river systems and prone to occasional and dramatic flash flooding.
A measure of vast dryness of inland Australia is the fact
that along the whole journey of 1,555 kilometres from Alice
Springs to Adelaide, The Ghan crosses only two major watercourses.
They appear on the maps as the rivers Hugh and Finke but for
most of the time they are rivers of sand, with hardy River
Red Gums driving their roots deep into the river beds in search
of moisture deep underground.
Then, the Ghan passes the 1170 km peg where passengers are
alerted to the Iron Man, a metal sculpture marking the site
of the one millionth concrete sleeper laid between Tarcoola
and Alice.
After a night of unfurling landscapes, monolithic eruptions
of rock on the flat horizon, a car's headlights in the unfathomable
distance, flyspeck townships neatly lined along the track
and in the morning Port Pirie glinting under a rainbow, you
arrive in Adelaide.
Depending on your day of travel, it will be necessary to spend 2 or 3 nights in Adelaide (at own expense) before boarding the Overland for Melbourne. Following an early morning departure you travel through the day, and arrive in Melbourne in the evening.
You can read a very interesting and informative article about
a train trip on The Ghan from Alice to Sydney, written by
Paul Pottinger for the Australian Magazine called
Straight From The Heart
- on The Ghan the romance lives on |
