The Ghan - taking Australia's iconic rail journey | Adelaide to Alice Springs

today we're going to be traveling on one of the world's great railway journeys the gan which makes the 3 000 kilometer trek between adelaide and darwin via australia's red centre in 54 hours so that's two nights and three days in today's video we'll travel the first leg of almost 1700 kilometers from adelaide to alice springs leaving around lunchtime and arriving in alice springs in about 28 hours the gan is a luxury train with all-inclusive fares that include all your meals and a wide selection of premium wines and other beverages although the train makes various stops mostly to allow freight trains to pass we won't step off the gan until tomorrow morning in mala in the state's far north the gan is the longest passenger train in the world today's train has 35 carriages hauled by two locomotives and is 876 metres long so long that it doesn't fit into one platform in adelaide so is spread across two here's my cabin in day mode i'll give you a proper tour later there's only sleeper compartments on the gan you cannot sit up these carriages are being shunted out of the platform to the front of the train ready for departure today's train has just under 200 passengers which is fewer than normal to allow for reduced capacity in the dining and lounge cars because of physical distancing requirements before the pandemic each gan departure would typically have around 300 passengers there are 42 crew on board including six chefs and two technicians well it's time to make tracks sorry i couldn't help myself there are two classes of travel on the game gold service which is what most people travel in and platinum service which includes a double or twin bed rather than upper and lower births you might be surprised to learn that passengers cannot walk from the front to the end of the train because it's essentially divided into three separate sections each with their own power car and crew car where the staff sleep each section is about 11 carriages long and includes three gold class sleeping cars three platinum class sleeping cars a restaurant car and a lounge car originally known as the afghan express the gan takes its name from the afghan camel drivers called camaliers who arrived in australia in the 1860s and helped open up australia's remote interior the town of snowtown which is in the next few minutes if you look to the right hand side of the train you'll see one of the turbine blades mounted in the main street the story behind that is it fell off the back of a truck and instead of trying to repair it 45 minutes after departure it's time for lunch i went for the grilled limestone coast beef eye fillet followed by a chocolate and mandarin layered mousse with raspberry sorbet for dessert [Music] so this is a standard gold service twin cabin in the day time it's made up this six hit three people although the cabin is four two bunk bed is obviously up here so this is what the room looks like we're currently pulling up to a siding i believe there's another train coming through the other direction so you can see we've got some mirror hi another mirror a room for a small piece of luggage in here there's a small safe as well as room to hang some clothing got a little table the table folds away two power ports under there another power port up here you've got some audio up here you can actually listen to music and channel five and six of a commentary in here this is the bathroom see it's quite small um as you'd expect there's a toilet there's a shower so when you have a shower you pull the curtain around so it doesn't get onto the toilet in here we've got towels and i've got some lovely products so shampoo conditioner as well as some skin lotion got a little basin here so compact but functional kevin you can leave your door open if you want ladies and gentlemen currently i'm stationed at the rail siding of the red hill we will be crossing the freight train if you look to the left-hand side of the train very shortly a freight train will come through this section with the window you can raise and lower the blind there's the passing freight train there's also some reading lamps just like that there's a button to call the staff and there's another reading lamp on this side because the room is designed for two people uh that i have a single occupancy we come out here just in this room there are tea and coffee facilities so you can make tea coffee hot chocolate etc there's some water through a filter tap and the basic supplies that you may need so we're currently in the mid north of south australia north of snowtown and heading towards port augusta and i'll just quickly show you what you get in your cabin so uh each twin cabin has two bottles of water some little hand sanitizers and also because of covered 19 of course alcohol wipes and a little pack so it's quite useful you also get a journey companion a little guide to the trip um a little booklet on off train excursions which is more relevant if you're going all the way to darwin which these off train excursions most of them are included with the trip but i'm getting off in alice springs and you also get uh you get allocated specific times uh for your dining so there's a lounge car which can go to any time provided there's not too many people in there so your lunch dinner and breakfast are all allocated by the staff we're now slowly moving north and we're about to reach the point where the train line diverges so there's a line that heads north to port augusta and there's a line that heads east towards broken hill and eventually over the blue mountains to sydney now that uh point where you can go either way is here in crystal [Music] broad [Music] there's numerous solar and wind farms in this part of the state and they're certainly doing well today [Music] as we round this bend near port pirie the full length of the train comes into view and it's incredible how far ahead of us the engines [Music] are [Music] [Music] the scenery gradually changes as we head north towards the flinders ranges and see the waters of the upper spencer gulf on approach to port augusta [Music] this narrow gauge railway goes from port augusta to quan in the flinders ranges and was part of the original gan railway line it's now a heritage railway the pitchy richie this is a brill railcar used by the south australian railways between 1925 and 1971. it's now operated by the pichirichi railway port augusta was once a major railway town it was the hub for the trans-australian railway linking perth with the eastern seaboard as well as being a key point on the old gan line to ud nada which was later extended to alice springs sadly there are no regular passenger trains serving port augusta today other than heritage services however it retains a major yard for freight services as we head north west towards tarkula it's time for dinner starting off with grilled kangaroo loin followed by a south australian seafood tasting plate and finishing with riverland apricot trifle delicious there's also a substantial wine list to choose from it's now well and truly dusk so let's have a quick look around there are three gold service sleeper carriages in my section of the train [Music] this is the outback explorer lounge the lounge offers a wide selection of hot and cold beverages including espresso coffee and a range of spirits it's a great place to watch the scenery and chat to other passengers you can also buy merchandise [Music] so after your meal the cabin attendant makes up your room and turns it into a bed which folds down obviously there's normally a bunk bed as well if you are sharing a cabin but because i'm on my own i have the single bed just like this and you get complimentary chocolate there's obviously stairs for when the bunk bed is in use yeah so looks very comfortable there's time to enjoy some final views as the sun sets and we head west towards tarkula where the train will leave the transcontinental railway and head north for alice springs good morning today we're up super early to see sunrise this is the platinum club car which is both a restaurant and a lounge car accessible only to passengers traveling in platinum service but we get a quick look through as we head to one of the doors that's been opened so that we can get off the train here in mala there's no platform so we need to make our way down the steps [Music] the staff have placed lanterns along the track to guide us to the rail siding where there's a campfire waiting with tea coffee and bacon and egg rolls [Music] let's take a look at the itinerary after sunrise there'll be time for coffee and to freshen up before a flexible brunch between 10am and 1pm then we'll arrive into alice springs later this afternoon time to get back on board and i wanted to give you a quick view of the queen adelaide restaurant where meals are served to gold service passengers we're currently just south of the border with the northern territory so we'll be entering the northern territory very shortly the train stopped at 6 00 a.m for sunrise at mala and now we're continuing our journey we're traveling rather slowly about 40 kilometers an hour because of the condition of the track which isn't great but that's factored into the timetable talk about i guess track conditions spoken to a few other passengers this morning and i think a lot of people struggled to sleep because of the track conditions so when the train was moving there was a lot of movement and jolting and noise so it was actually quite difficult to sleep my sleep was certainly intermittent but you know it's part of the experience so i'm not going to complain too much they do give you a little kit when they do the turn down service which includes some eye shades and also some hearing plugs so you can fight the noise the air conditioning of the train you might be able to do it now is quite loud don't expect to use your mobile phone out here there is very limited reception north of port augusta and there's no wi-fi on the train but honestly it's great just to escape all that and relax this is the iron man sculpture built by railway workers to mark the millionth concrete sleeper laid during the construction of the track from tarkula to alice springs and before we know it it's time for brunch i went for grilled halloumi with avocado and kale followed by wild berries with yogurt and finished with an australian sparkling wine the fink river is believed to be the oldest riverbed in the world [Music] [Music] one of the most common questions i get about traveling on the gan is doesn't it get boring the answer is no not at all aside from the gradually changing view out of the window you spend a lot of your time dining or sitting in the lounge car where you can chat to other guests read a book or end up in a game of cards with other passengers as i did [Music] tickets on the gan vary in price depending on the time of year a gold service twin cabin between adelaide and alice springs is about 1 700 per person in peak season you can save about 20 by purchasing six months in advance there are also cheaper fares in shoulder season these fares are based on sharing the solo occupancy in a twin cabin which has an ensuite you'll pay substantially more single cabins are normally available for a reasonable price but these use shared bathrooms at the end of each carriage i actually booked a single cabin for this journey but was upgraded to a twin cabin because they removed all shared bathrooms because of the pandemic it's definitely worth keeping an eye out for discounted fares which have been available recently as tourism operators try to encourage australians to travel again and now we can see the west mcdonnell ranges which signals our imminent arrival into alice springs where this first section of my journey will end i'm hopping off here to spend a week seeing some local attractions now these birds are nest robbers so they'll not be running around into nests using their feet and beak to crack eggs open but emu eggs are a bit harder to get into so these birds throw rocks [Music] be sure to subscribe so you don't miss part two of this journey when we hop back aboard the gan for the trip to darwin including a visit to the stunning catherine gorge as we head back down here i'm not really going to say too much just let you guys sit back and enjoy the gorge for what it is if you enjoyed this video don't forget to smash the like button see you soon [Music] you

Channel: Aus Flight Channel

Views: 320,017

Rating: 4.8782649 out of 5

Keywords: The Ghan, Journey Beyond, journey beyond expeditions, great railway journeys, Adelaide to Darwin, Adelaide to Alice Springs, Adelaide Parklands terminal, longest passenger train, great railway trips, great southern rail, gold service, twin cabin, sleeper train, sleeper cabin, transcontinental railroad, transcontinental railway, travel by train, alice springs by train, luxury train travel, the ghan gold class, the ghan gold twin, the ghan gold service, luxury train

Id: CUqyK0o9Uvo

Length: 19min 46sec (1186 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 11 2021