The Ghan – will it really go??
We flew to Darwin a few days ahead of time and were amazed at how much it has improved in the 30 years since we first saw it. The day the train was scheduled to leave (It has been raining for several days by now.) we crawled out of bed at 5:30, met in the lobby at 7 to be collected by bus to go to the Convention Center before going to the Ghan station outside of town by about 17 km. The process in need of a bit of change:
Hotel – give them all the bags – checked and carryon. Get to convention center, stand in line again so they could put the Bus # on our lanyard cards; watch a little show drinking bad coffee; hang out waiting to go to train about 9 AM. At 9 AM we got on Bus #4 to the train. At the train station we claimed our carryon bags and boarded K4 cabin; got organized. After Lincoln (cabin attendant) gave us the rundown, we went to the lounge car and had a glass of champagne.
“Why are we still sitting here at 10 AM??” Heavy rain flooded the tracks near Tennant Creek and the company was meeting to figure out what could be done. Served lunch and finally decided that we would leave at 4 PM and we’d be on the train for an extra night, getting into Adelaide on Saturday morning instead of Friday afternoon. Mark and Gayle thought Saturday was the original schedule!
If people could not do that, they could get off and get a refund. We would not do any excursion at Katherine because the roads to the gorge were flooded! We should arrive in Alice Springs on Friday AM for our excursions. We got $300 AU for the missed excursions.
Thank heavens for Wifi and TMobile. We changed the hotels and waited and drank champagne. The train finally pulled out at 4:37 PM, more than 6 hours late.
