Journey on the Ghan, Adelaide to Darwin

[Music] sunday morning and we're heading to the train station um at keswick to get on our train which is not just any train we're going on again again three-day trip to darwin stopping at where sj marla alice springs catherine darling looking forward to this yep why are we going on again because we are and because it's our birthdays this is a special birthday yesterday nope certainly not a special birthday it's just a regular one it's a special birthday but she won't tell you what it is but it comes after 49. thanks a lot we got an upgrade to gold superior cost a bit more money obviously we did pay a bit more money but there is actually a pretty significant size difference huge difference now we could use the wings we could have paid probably double again and we would have gone up yeah technically if you pay double again you get platinum but the lady at the counter said it's actually still bigger than the platinum ones so we're quite happy with this room very happy very very happy you're going to show them what's around [Music] this is the bathroom this is quite adequate and double bed instead of a double bed instead of two single bunks and there is actually a bunk above there's actually a ladder in the cupboard if you need [Music] so yeah and two double windows so we can enjoy the scenery so this is what you get in superior gold class on the game okay like the big reveal into the bar here by the looks yep here's the bar you just press the green button [Music] is here is the tassel that's been spilled but you know it's a moving train it's okay it's hot it was gonna worry a little bit about whether or not the coffee is a winner with uh sj a lot depends on it i'm not so fussy earthquake proof that we are on a train [Music] we've obviously been waiting for something else to pass through oh fuel apparently the road that we usually drive on the other side isn't because this it million i think so this train line goes off in a different direction i mean we'll also use a different part of the flinders they um i think so that should be fun [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] can we go straight in there for coffee [Music] would you like some coffee absolutely hell yes at least three so we just asked the south australia northern territory and there is actually a marker but it's so tiny you can't see it on the photo i was taking the uh mick before saying look out for the line on the ground but there is actually a marker so with the sign on one side saying south australia and everyone's saying northern territory but if you blink you miss it so we are now in the northern territory that's it that ladies and gentlemen was the iron man monument the significance of that is that is apparently where the one millionth sleeper was laid from port augusta um towards alice springs and as was pointed out to us who'd want the job to count those do they really have to yeah they have to count everyone because it's a cost said by the person who owns projects there you have it just coming into alice springs i've never been here before i have very briefly off the airplane into a car drive to the room that's about it [Music] [Music] lovely breeze yeah nice water we don't get to swim in it there you go i think it wanted however there's some beautiful tomography around here it's quite quite pretty just a little taste we'll have to go back and look at it properly another time without all the cracks [Music] yes [Music] off to dinner last dinner on the game miss jay's put a new frock on birthday bro birthday frock they're all not so much he did put on a clean t-shirt however just been told we're not gonna be stopping at catherine tomorrow because of floods a little bit disappointing but oh well what can you do eh [Music] last dinner on the game not last meal just last time you might think that that means we can do doing one going to be cheaper but still we came on again so that didn't really work out this year for our last dinner entree this is [Music] yeah tastes like chicken chicken so um i've got the barramundi and i'm assuming that's some sort of fish row on there um but let's give it a go there's no point to you know talking about it let's just eat it all right let's eat it it's going to be really tidy oops he's also a messy eater [Music] it's just collapsing it looks it looks amazing we got veggies too mm-hmm we've got white sharks is this the best one yet um i'm not sure it's all been good it really is i gotta say i think this is pretty good all right we're gonna go with uh what do we get tonight this is cap all right let's bottoms out it's nice but i think i prefer the giraffe that's what but this is really nice to do for coffee but is very nice sometimes it may slip inside my coffee excuse with a journey on the gown a very special milestone so sarah on behalf of myself and the crew we'd like to wish you uh a very happy birthday i believe it's for next week correct third of march that's right and it's a milestone birthday that's all we need to say but um if you'd like to join me in wishing and singing sarah happy birthday one two three happy birthday to you happy birthday to you happy birthday dear sarah happy birthday to you [Applause] congratulations for next week and uh we hope you have a lovely time celebrating she didn't see that one coming we just come back to our cabin look what we found how cute is that what does this got anything to do with sarah's birthday monster and they've put out the top bank bunk bun bunk tonight we've had one or two that's because we were running out of room so we weren't running out of room we were in that room because daryl apparently doesn't like being kicked in the middle of the night guess who has the top bunk tonight i'll give you one guess it ain't the birthday girl no it's me i'm upstairs but that is kind of cute and i gotta say when sarah's finished playing with the lights like we're in a disco the um staff have really looked after us today and uh yeah this is just the icy on the cake really [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] last lunch on the game but first have a coffee coffee coffee i don't really have the twist sarah's arm much on these nights do it never open sesame this is all right let's just dive in shall we and see how we go given that we have not exactly turned their nose up anything we've eaten i think the odds are pretty good that this is gonna be a winner too it's pretty smelly crazy [Music] how good the food is the job you guys are doing i'm glad you enjoyed thank you every meal awesome excellent thank you so and i was just curious about the conditions you've watched um particularly as i used to be in the navy years ago and i was here meeting did you yeah a long time ago yeah out now on here or in overseas or it was in sydney um late 80s early 90s oh i was in the late 90s and i was always i mean it was good ashore until i civilianized it then not as much but um but as see it was always fantastic and i knew i was always uh impressed with how our cooks did their job but it it's kind of the same thing so yeah well done thank you so much for letting me have a quick look i appreciate [Music] we'll give all the dishes a bit of a rinse first so you can see they've got the fruit freezer down the back there right oh excellent issues like a hot plate it's very similar yeah a great job all right thank you very much how was that then uh really good for them to let us have a bit of a look at that and yeah the food has been fantastic so 10 out of 10. [Music] so our trip is drawing to a close on the game and i have to say it's it's been really really um a really good experience i could have done with an extra few days but um you know that's what makes it special isn't it so i mean look some pros and cons mostly all pros um the only the only cons it costs a lot of money all right kind of can't overlook the fact that it's not cheap but it's value for money it's just not cheap but the the thing is when you get that is uh and we've just done a little questionnaire at the end and it's interesting because if you do pay a lot of money you're always inclined to be a little bit more critical and we really really couldn't be like the food has been excellent it's been i mean i am literally going to roll off this train i'll get a roll off the train it's those portion sizes haven't been massive but they didn't need to be food is just rich it's beautiful food is fantastic um so that was like five stars to us and the drinks inclusive drinks are inclusive for the price you pay but obviously you have to worry about that on the on the train which is i guess one of the things that's a little bit different to cruises that if you're going to go on a cruise you do have to pay pay for some sort of drinks package and that's part of the consideration but it isn't on the train um so there's apart from as i say that there is a cost um and apart from the fact that uh in our circumstances we did miss out on um a bit of a trip because of the weather um you know the kind of trip what they are doing is we're getting some trips in darwin to make up for the fact that we couldn't do trips in so that's so they're always trying to sort of um if something doesn't go according to plan they try and um i guess try and compensate you in another way if it's at all possible and i had happy birthday to me yep that's uh that was great that's gonna be in the video um that's going to be that's going to be one of the really good memories from the trip and any other cons really not really it's it's some people struggled with sleeping with the motion of the train but i can't say i found that an issue in fact it was the lack of motion it's when the train stopped that i tended to wake up the rocking of the train was quite easy to sleep too i think it's been the most comfortable train i've been on by a mile yeah me too um so which is saying something because the actual quality of the track um you know it's this one tractor in the middle of outback australia um and you know freight trains use that and industrial um industrial purposes uh but it's been really good it's been really uh the staff excellent um always friendly uh during these difficult times 2020 2021 maybe in the near future always friendly catherine her team you guys rock yeah it's been a great experience team has been fabulous so yeah thanks very much to everyone we changed our minute last pulled out a mini miracle in such a short time to get us changed when we decided we wanted to do a different one yesterday yeah we we made a mistake in alice um we uh we thought there were only two trips and then there was another one that was mentioned we all we didn't know about that and it turns out it was probably the information booklet and we just hadn't seen it but they accommodated that as well so um nothing was too much trouble in that respect um and i i i expressed an interest in the galley and uh in between servings they they showed me that as well so i found that interesting so uh would we do it again yes absolutely um maybe not in the near future uh maybe the other way around rather than that um darwin to adelaide is along the trip it's three not it's three nights not two so might be worthwhile and then there's the uh indian pacific which is the uh other main trades um the only thing that would stop us doing that one at the moment apart from i suspect the cost which we'd have to weigh up is the issue with borders at the moment but once that's resolved i think we'd be dead keen to do that one to see see the full diversity of australia the other way other than that no memorable trip in some ways it's compensated us for the lack of a cruise that we were going to do to the south pacific um highly recommended [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Oz in Pictures

Views: 9,121

Rating: 4.4893618 out of 5

Keywords: The, Ghan, TheGhan, JourneyBeyond, train, rail, outback, SouthAustralia, NorthernTerritory, Adelaide, Marla, AliceSprings, Darwin, Oz, Aus, Australia, pictures, pics, photos, photographs, OzinPictures

Id: -Ux1vBiG6KQ

Length: 28min 42sec (1722 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 11 2021