The Ghan: Adelaide to Darwin

And so we boarded "The Legendary Ghan", with 48 hrs of train journey ahead of us. 



The Ghan, economy backpacker class

The train took us almost due north from Adelaide via Alice Springs and Katherine, to Darwin.  After our first night onboard, we woke up to the sun rising over the central red desert of Australia, and expansive views of barren landscape and ochre sands. 



Sunrise

We broke our journey in Alice Springs, and managed to fit in a flying visit to Uluru (Ayers Rock) on the day between trains.  Although we had visited 6 years ago, we still got a magical feeling on first site of this amazing monolith:



Uluru (Ayers Rock)

We were lucky enough to witness sunset at Uluru, sipping champagne as the rock showed off its magnificent spectrum of colours:



Champagne Sunset



Glowing red Uluru

Earlier in the day we'd explored the caves and rock art at the base of Uluru.  We also visited a waterhole, sacred to the aborigines for being the largest source of water in the area;




Mutijulu waterhole

Although this was a flying visit, we still managed to visit the other attraction in the park, Kata Tjuta (the Olgas), and took a short walk between the huge domes:



The Olgas

Back to Alice Spring in darkness, and an afternoon departure for Darwin.  We arrived into Katherine for breakfast, and took advantage of a 4 hour break to take a cruise along Katherine Gorge:






Katherine Gorge

It was only 5 hours more until our arrival into Darwin.  This felt like a short journey after witnessing at first hand the huge scale of Australia, despite being longer than our previous regular visits to Cumbria from London!



48 hrs and we made it!

We left Adelaide feeling cool and comfortable in 18 degrees, arriving into Darwin to 35 degree heat!  We're looking forward to a week of exploring the national parks nearby of Kakadu and Litchfield.