The Ghan

The obligatory souvenir pic - with our ID tags!

Our cabin - with a nice little welcome platter and goodies bag!

A very warm welcome from Tayla, our cabin hostess - our 'Bolly-Dolly'
Tayla made us feel very welcome and had the perfect personality for the job!

Settling in nicely!  (The bottle was strictly a prop!)

Dinner in the Platinum Restaurant watching the sunset!

Tayla did a wonderful job of preparing our night cabin - complete with 'nightcap'!

First morning dawn gathering - complete with several bonfires ... and

... coffee with egg and bacon rolls - perfect dawn snack! 

Strict instructions to stay within lighted 'corridor' to the bonfires and DO NOT wander off into the dawn - it's a big, empty country and search teams are not readily available - not to mention the animals etc!

First opportunity to see the length of the train - looking toward engine - this is less than half the total length of the train .... and

... looking toward the rear - vanishing in the distance!

Another obligatory tourist pic - one for the gallery!

Back on the train - freshen up, ready for brunch!! 

"Iron Man" monument commemorating the laying of the millionth concrete sleeper on the Tarcoola-Alice Springs segment of the Adelaide-Darwin railway line 

Distant views of the Flinders Ranges

Lunch before arriving in Alice - the train starts slowing about an hour before, and then takes another 30+ minutes to position after arrival.

Our pre-arranged excursion was to Standley Chasm, via the John Flynn Memorial - the resting place for the ashes of the Reverend John Flynn, founder of the Royal Flying Doctor Service and the Australian Inland Mission.

The grave is on a low hill at the foot of the MacDonnell Ranges - The rock is an eight-tonne granite boulder sourced from Karlu Karlu (the Devil's Marbles) and rests on a stone base, chosen by his wife Jean to mirror biblical tombstone traditions.  The memorial plaque expresses a lifetime achievement in just a few lines
'His vision encompassed the continent. He established the Australian Inland Mission and founded the Royal Flying Doctor Service. He brought to lonely places a spiritual ministry and spread a mantle of safety over them by medicine and the radio'.

Simpsons Gap is a spiritual place for the local Arrente aboriginal people, calling it Rungutjirpa,  mythological home of a group of giant goanna ancestors in Arrernte Dreaming stories.  . The gap has been carved out of the ranges by Roe creek, flowing through the small gap in the MacDonnell Ranges. Located just 18 kilometres from Alice Springs, this permanent waterhole is home to resident plants and wildlife, including the black-footed-rock wallaby.
The striking geological formation has significant botanical, birdwatching and wildlife photography appeal. 
As we were part of a large group, our pics are the result of 'escaping the crowd'!

Traditional fish trap just downstream of the Chasm 

The floodplain below the the Gap

Next day, we're in Katherine and our pre-arranged excursion is to the Cutta Cutta Caves.

The name "Cutta Cutta" comes from the local Jawoyn Indigenous language, meaning the place where stars rest during the day  . Traditional stories say that bats take the crystals out of the cave into the night sky to become stars, returning them to the cave at daybreak. The caves were traditionally viewed as a sacred resting place for the stars during the day, and it was custom not to go deep inside them.

Another 'tourist' pic  (ho-hum)