Eyre by air, Darwin by train

Eyre by Air

We are about to set off on a short trip by air over Lake Eyre and taking in Mildura, Marree, William Creek, Broken Hill and Silverton.

To quote from the Lake Eyre Basin website:

On a global scale, the Lake Eyre Basin: is one of the largest internally draining systems; has the fifth largest terminal lake; is an arid and semi-arid part of the driest inhabited continent; and is drained by the most variable, major river systems, the Georgina, Diamantina and Cooper...

We will be leaving from Tooradin, a small airfield near Victoria's Westernport Bay and it seems as though it will be the ultimate in how air travel should be. We have been told to get there half an hour before departure time and it is just half-an-hour's drive from home but we have been given the pilot's mobile phone number in case we have any problems in getting there. Parking is free. We will be flying in a Piper Chieftain aircraft similar to the photo below:

I will have a netbook with me in the hope of posting additional material here, but this is outback Australia, not known for its best connectivity. Being in such areas is part of the appeal.

 

Comfort on The Ghan

This should have been an earlier post in this web log, but it is only after one experiences air travel again that there is a realisation of just how good the slow and steady transport of rail, especially luxury rail transport, can be.

Our flight from Darwin back to Alice Springs involved delays because of a no-show passennger, a wait for a storm to pass by, then further waits near the end of the runway for other aircraft, then because of a fault which may have been caused by that waiting, back to the terminal, disembarking, and, after an hour or so during which engineers checked the plane and it was again refueled and we were eventually off to our destination. The cabin crew cannot be faulted but, as I said, it reinforces how good rail travel really is.

Incidentally, when we first checked in at Darwin airport and passed through the metal detectors and cabin backage x-ray, Gwen was selected for a “random exxplosives residue test”; the security staff were again very polite but it is a further reminder of the dangers inherent in air travel...again no such checks (yet) at railway stations.

Our pictures show the Ghan platinum cabin seating; the double bed is in the wall behind and is dropped down each night while we were having dinner in the dining car. The other pictures shows the ensuite toilet facilities. The shower is to the left inside the door.

 

Looking thrugh the cabin window as the other Ghan, southbound from Darwin to Adelaide, passes us.

Darwin by night

The dinner cruise on the Alfred Nobel is a good way to spend an evening: little information on what you are passing, but the food, cooked on the barbecue hanging over the ship's side is one might be tempted to say “dynamite”. While we were there the Chinese navy was in town and we passed close by their two ships, in daylight on the way out and with ther lights showing on the way back, as shown in our photos below:

The local TV news told locals that while the Chinese navy personnel would be mu8ch in evidence in the city, locals should remmeber that they did not have as much to spend as other visitors, such as the American navy.

Darwin harbour sunset:

Darwin by night, including the increasing number of tall but not so very tall) buildings:

Ancient warning of uranium?

Within Kakadu National Park there is a rock painting at least a thousand years old of a man with swollen elbows and knees; it appears to be a warning not to go to the nearby "badlands" which just happens to be where one of the world's major uranium mines is situated. There are also warnings of the lighning man in the same vicinity and it is now known that more lightning strikes occur in this region than anyehere else. Does the uranium attract the lighning? O)r does the lightning influence the formation of uranium? I would like to know.

My pictures show the stick figure with swollen joints, a possible result of radiation sickness, and below that the nearby Ranger uranium mine.

Most of the drivers of the heavy trucks carting the rock containing uranium from the mine are now young women, and I was tolf that since the change of gender in the employment of drivers, the maintenance costs on the trucks have dropped substantially. Make of that what you will.

Clarence watches on

Remember this water buffalo from Crocodile Dundee? He was actually a pet of the owners of the Adelaide River Hotel between Katherine and Darwin and performed many tricks like that he did for Paul Hogan. When he eventually died of cancer it was decided he should live on keeping wathc over the hotel bar and especially its souvenir corner.

Friendly locals

Maybe the crocs need to be kept at a distance, but much of the other wildlife is friendly, such as this wallaby at Katherine Gorge and below it a bowerbird seeking table scraps at Edith Falls.

That's my knee in the picture above. We understand that the male bowerbird puts much effort into building a mound-type nest with pretty objects like stones and even bottle tops etc. If the attracted female decides it is not good enough she will destroy the nest and he has to start again.

 

Crocs can jump

The point of this part of our trip, on the Adelaide River, near Kakadu, can best be made by a photo:

 

However the main reasoon for the visit was to see some of Kakadu's Aboriginal rock art. A most telling one was a stick figure with bulbous elbows and other joints, It appears to be a warning not to go into the adjacent badlands, where there is now the Ranger uranium mine. It is now known that prolonged exposure to even low levels of radiation can cause just the kind of swolen joints that are depicted in the paintings of possibly thousands of years ago;

Steaming ahead

s we travelled on The Ghan some way south of Port Augusta, we passed several ancient carriages with the CR insignia – which I thought was the old and long gone Commonwealth Railways. They were also full of waving people. We waved back.

Then we saw what was pullinng them: a green steam loco, with PRR on its side. Our train slowed up and the Pichi Richi Railway's steam train passed us.

It had happened too quickly to get my camera, but then came the announcement that as we had to wait for goods trains to pass, we would have an hour at Port Augusta. As wepulled into the platformm, there on the other side was the steam train's passengers disembarking.
The resulting photos will be upplo0aded when I get better than the slow and intermittent wireless connection available at Port Augusta.

Ib the meantime you can find out more about the Pichi Richi Railway at http://www.prr.org.au

First day on The Ghan

A late start th9is morning, picked up by the Skylink shuttle bus at 10.19am (I suppose such a precise time is needed for those who regard times, even 10.20 as being an indication rather than a time.

We were the second pickup by the small bus so we had an interesting tour of the central city's budget and not-so-budget hotels before reaching the Keswick rail terminal from where The Ghan departs.

We are travelling on the Platinum service, a cabin with a pull-down double bed and full ensuite shower and toilet. The, no THE comfortable way to travel and with a lot of bonuses for the expense.

I will send this as soon as I get a wireless broadband connection (we are somewhere near Crystal Brook as I write this). According to how long that takes there may be a few of the photos I've taken so far).

The Overland

The hotel we stayed at in Melbourne in order to be ready for an early
start on The Overland had the main advantage of being within a couple of
minute's walk of Southern Cross Station and also a good Asian
restaurant, but was also somewhat noisy until the guests causing that
were told louudly to be quiet, presumably by the management.

Tuesday morning we were up early, pulled our case uphill to the station
and were on platform 2 in ample time. We checked in our cases – which is
to be recommmended, as was the decision to pay the extra for the more
roomy seats of the Red Premium service – only three seats across the
width of the carriage and a trolley service for drinks and snacks.

The Overland staff is friendlly and offered some of the most corny
commentary heard in a long time. It is not a fast journey –leaving at
8.05am and arriving in Adelaide a liittle more than half an hour late at
6.20pm.

Our hotel in Adelaide, the Grand Chifley is a considerable step up from
the Enterprize in Melbourne but it is not easy to use those single lever
taps if you are not used to them, especially when combined with a slider
to switch between shower and bath output. Water always seems to be too
hot or too cold and going in the wrong direction. Maybe we just need
more modern conveniences at home.