The Ghan is frankly a waste of time. I heartily recommend anyone to fly to Alice Springs. Our reasons for choosing it were a mixture of nostalgia for our overnight train rides in Thailand, a desire to see the extent of the dusty Outback, and a sense of environmental duty since we’d already taken a few internal flights to get around Australia.
Well, as discussed it was nothing like the Thai sleepers. Perhaps getting a sleeping compartment would have been more fun but, just like airfares, going up a class immediately doubles the price. And the seat alone was already expensive, so stuff like the crap British Rail-esque food only makes it feel like really poor value for money. Oh yes, and it was bloody freezing at night, but do they give out blankets? No, if you want a blanket you have to buy one. It’s a nice souvenir, apparently.
So that’s point (4) in favour of our Thai trains – they weren’t freezing. And point (5) is the view through the window, which in Thailand varied and included towns and villages but on The Ghan is just endless empty scrub and cattle country. Now, I know I said this is what we wanted to see, so this comment is in hindsight. We already got a powerful sense of the vastness of the Outback driving around the Flinders Ranges, and we got it again this afternoon driving for 3.5 hours out to a cattle station guesthouse near to Uluru. Uluru and Alice Springs seem very close together in the imagination, but they’re actually 467 kms apart. London to Edinburgh sort of distance.
They’re having a mouse plague out here just now, after the rainy summer. We must have seen a couple of dozen so far, scuttling across the road on our drive or scampering around the cattle station here in the dark. None in our room – yet.
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