THE GHAN AND I

© Sally Hammond 2006

"Wake up, wake up!" The knocking on my door is insistent. Loud.

"Wake up! We're stopping in five minutes."

 I've been dreaming that I'd wandered into a music studio. Ka-chung, ka-chung, ka-chug-a-lug-chung. The beat is hypnotically even, never pausing. They hand me some drumsticks and I begin to pound. Bang, bang, bang. But it's all wrong.

"Wake UP!" 

I realise with a jolt that my berth is actually in the music studio, vibrating to the beat. And the drummer on my door is The Ghan’s guard, getting more frantic by the second.

Luckily I've slept the few hours since bedtime in my clothes, expecting this could happen. I am part of a group disembarking at Manguri Siding. It is a moonless 3am and I can almost feel the tension of the driver watching out for the fires lit by the people who are to meet us. They have come from Coober Pedy, my ultimate destination, half an hour away by road. Visible from kilometres away across the hummocks of  saltbush and spinifex, the fires are beacons to signal when this might train should begin to slow down.

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This article continues with details of The Ghan and the huge task of laying a track into the centre of Australia, and ultimately to Darwin in the northern coast of Australia. It also details style of travel and other key information and can be expanded to include details about the opal-mining town of Coober Pedy.

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(finishes…)

We watch until it is just a shadow on the horizon. In around seven hours it will be in Alice Springs. I imagine the passengers stretching, answering a gentle knock on their doors at 7am with the offer of tea or coffee. As they breakfast, the train will still be pounding along at its average 85 kilometres an hour. By 10am, just nineteen hours after boarding, they will reach Alice Springs, some taking advantage of add-on package tours to Uluru, aka Ayers Rock.

Paul Theroux in his book, The Great Railway Bazaar, writes: "I have seldom heard a train go by, and not wished I was on it."

As I watch The Ghan - my train – become swallowed up by darkness, the sound muting first to a rumble, then a hum, I think I understand.

Next time, I promise myself, nothing will separate us - The Ghan and I. I vow I’ll stay on it, all the way.

To Darwin, if I can.

©Sally Hammond 2006

Picture Credits: Great Southern Railways

(Sally Hammond travelled as a guest of  Great Southern Railways)

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Contact Sally Hammond for a pricing schedule or to discuss purchase of this article.

 

• Currently the article runs to approximately 800 words plus Factfile (fact-checked and updated free on sale of this article).

• The article may be shortened according to editorial needs, and the Factfile may be expanded, however if additional work is requested it will affect the final cost of the article.

• Pictures are available from Great Southern Railways, and can be arranged by the author.

• This article has previously been published in Australia and first Australian print rights have been sold.