Wednesday - the day the Ghan adventure begins. It started with a curious case of class hierachy. After we checked out of the Holiday Inn Esplanade we had to wheel and lug our luggage "next door" to the Holiday Inn Darwin to catch our bus to meet the Ghan. When the bus finally arrived and collected its passengers and luggage it drove back along the Esplande and past "our" hotel where there was another Ghan bus collecting the "Gold" and "Red" class passengers - we were travelling "Platinum".When the bus approached the railway station (built outside Darwin) it stopped so we could take this picture - the Ghan with the Darwin skyline beyond.
The train - all three quarters of a kilometer (725 metres) or 28 carriages. This shot and the following one are taken from the same spot, looking towards the end and the front of the train.
And a shot of the engine. In fact, there are two engines until the train gets to Alice Springs because there's not too many bits of double-track on the new bit of track between Alice and Darwin, so they need two engines to protect against one breaking down in a spot that's inaccessible. The extra engine is de-coupled in Alice Springs to return with the next Ghan heading to Darwin. (It runs two northbound and two southbound trains per week).
The inside of our cabin. The bit with the two seats folds down to make the bed (not that we actually did the folding down) - more on that later. And the little desk/table also folds down out of the way.
The cabin has a full (though compact) bathroom with standard sized shower and toilt (more on that later too).
There's not a lot of storage space, and we followed the recommendation to take an overnight bag each on board and checked our suitcase through to Adelaide.
Next post I'll cover the afternoon - our "whistle-stop" for Day 1 is Katherine.
Where did you get the male model to pose in your cabin?
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