Friday, September 19th and Saturday, September 20th, 2025 - A Glimpse of Darwin, The Ghan, and Katherine Gorge

 

The Ghan - Train from Darwin to Adelaide

When planning our trip, I recalled a journey I had taken back in the 1970's, from Perth to Sydney on the train they call the Indian-Pacific. It took three days of constant travel and was a regular train route to get people from A to B. Now these long train routes in Australia have been 'touristified', offering a higher level of service with side trips, good food and unlimited drinks. Although that's not normally my style, we thought it would be a way to truly experience the vast nothingness of Central Australia, so we signed up for 'The Ghan'.

The train journey was three nights and three full days, including a side trip to Katherine Gorge and Coober Pedy. However, we chose to break it up with a week of travel around the Red Centre, with another travel company, Outback Spirit. In this blog, I'll share a few highlights from our trip from Darwin to Alice Springs before we began our road segment of travel.

Burnett House at Myilly Point

Darwin is the capital of the Northern Territory, with a population of 139,902 in the 2021 census. We had just an afternoon here, so we truly only had a very brief glimpse. Knowing that 80% of the city had been destroyed in Cyclone Tracy, in December 1974, I thought it would be worth seeking out one of the few homes that survived that destruction. A small collection of houses had been taken under the care of the National Heritage Trust, so we stopped for a peek. They were not open, but this gives you an idea of the sort of 'Queenslander' style that would have been here previously. While it is not the oldest house here, Burnett House was built in 1938 and is the only surviving pre-WW2 "K" style house. These are two-storey buildings, engineered to stay cool and provide maximum ventilation to adapt to Darwin's hot, humid, tropical climate.

Newer Apartments

This apartment building is not far from the historic houses - although they have nice balconies, they probably rely on air conditioning for comfort.

Near the CBD, Darwin

Darwin is a small city, and although the center has some high-rise buildings near the CBD (Central Business District), construction height is generally lower than in other major cities in Australia.

Northern Territory Museum and Art Gallery

Having spent time looking at ancient, traditional, Aboriginal art, we decided to visit the Museum and Art Gallery, which was showing an exhibition of  the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards.

'Wandjina, We Still Holding Onto Them 2024', by Barbara Bear Aundie and Mildred Mungulu

I liked this collection of hand-built stonewear figures, fired with with oxides. The artists chose clay to form these images of creation beings from their tribe. The sign nearby said that 'on canvas, you can see the beings, but with clay, you can hold them'. I liked that the artists used a different medium to accomplish similar messaging as we had been seeing on cave walls in Kakadu and Arnhem Land.

Yinkiti Jilamara/Food Design 2025, by Graham Tipungwuti

This artist, from the Tiwi Islands (north of Darwin) chose to use natural ochres on stringybark. It would seem that the color range offered by ochre would be limiting, but I think he has done a great job with it. This entry was given a Telstra bark painting award. Graham Tipungwuti's work was influenced by Andy Warhol and represents the processed foods that have been introduced to the Tiwi Islands as a result of colonization. Perhaps one could look at it and say, as was the case with much of the rock art, that it is telling people what type of 'food is available here'. In fact the messaging is greater than that, as the write-up said 'By centreing (sic) a can of great Northern Beer, Graham addresses the complexities of alcohol regulations on Tiwi'. 

Regulations around alcohol throughout the Northern Territory are complex. When we were in Kakadu, the local supermarket did not sell alcohol at all. We could only buy alcohol within an establishment such as a hotel where we were eating, or were guests. One of the rules they have is a Banned Drinker Register, (BDR), which requires establishments selling alcohol to check the buyer's government issued ID against a list of persons who have been banned from purchasing, possessing or drinking alcohol. Research suggests this has reduced the number of emergency room visits attributed to alcohol consumption, and has reduced alcohol-related assaults by 26% and domestic violence by 21% (although Google AI, says this might not be entirely due to the BDR). Clearly, the law has been a response to alcohol related problems, which are more prevalent among indigenous populations. It is also not the only strategy the government is employing in efforts to reduce harm from alcohol abuse and addiction.

Our Country 2024, 

This dramatic piece of synthetic polymer paint on linen, was given a Telstra General Painting Award. It was created by five sisters, their niece and one of their daughters, to tell the story of the Seven Sisters, which is about family protecting and teaching each other. It tells of women being chased by a bad man, but being protected by their elder sisters. Although I could not follow the details of the story in this piece, I felt it had a great deal of power.

Mostly Men at Shenannigans

Perhaps it's unfair of me to follow the story of the seven sisters with this photo, but Fran and I did notice that there were many more men than women at this establishment near the restaurant we ate at on Mitchell Street, near downtown. Perhaps there was a game on, or it was a special event, as Google AI says there are only 5% more men than women here. 

Art, Outside the Gallery

If you have followed me before, you know I love 'street art'. I loved the comedic nature of this piece that was in the CBD. The dog on the left is baying 'blow a kiss, sing a tune, hold my hand, love the moon x'. On top of the rock on the right, the dingo replies 'I'm a dingo, not a dog'. This evokes a drama that occurred in Australia in 1980, when a family, who were visiting Uluru (Ayers Rock in those days) had their 8 week old baby stolen from their tent by a dingo. It led to many enormous court cases, as no one could believe that a dingo could be blamed for such a heinous crime. The mother, Lindy Chamberlain was found guilty of murder and imprisoned for three years, until the baby's matinee jacket was found after a tourist had fallen near the site in 1986. It was a terrible miscarriage of justice which is well portrayed in the movie 'Cry in the Dark', starring Meryl Streep and Sam Neill. 

View From the Train Window

Once we were on the train on Saturday morning, there was plenty of time to try photography at 50 miles an hour! It was a fun venture, but not entirely successful! The general speed of travel seemed very sedate. Google says the train can travel up to 71 miles an hour, but mostly it just seemed to chug along at this moderate speed. I wondered why the journey took so long, but apparently the track is old and the fact that it is shared with freight trains led to occasional sidelining, Another passenger suggested that hitting a camel or kangaroo could be a problem too, if the train ran at a faster speed. Apparently there was a significant disruption in 2009 when it hit a large bull! The 1,851 mile journey takes 54 hours, and includes a number of excursions.

Magnetic Termite Mounds

Fran and I had seen large termite mounds from the road when we were going to and from Kakadu, but we didn't stop the car to take photographs, much to our regret, as they were amazing structures. It is much less satisfying to snap a picture from a train, but this collection, above, gives you the idea of their size. In fact they are somewhat frightening to contemplate - they can stand up to 13 feet tall. The reference to magnetism in their name is not because the ants are magnetic, but because the mounds are oriented along a north-south axis. This allows them to get the sun's warmth on their eastern and western sides at the beginning and end of the day, but less surface is exposed at midday to reduce the risk of overheating. The outside is hard and durable, while inside they are soft and papery.

Each mound can house up to a million termites, with a queen, king, reproductives, soldiers and workers. Unlike the termites we fear in Florida, they do not eat wood, but eat grass and other vegetation instead.

Headed for Nitmiluk (Katherine) Gorge

The train stopped in Katherine and it's passengers were taken in buses to a variety of excursions. I chose to go to Nitmiluk or Katherine Gorge, which is on the Katherine River, within Nitmiluk National Park. The river meanders through 13 gorges, which are said to be gorgeous! The trip I had signed up for, was focused on rock art. The trip description had mentioned a 2 km walk to get to the site, so I was all keen to trot. 

Boats Moored with Chains

As we approached the end of the fist gorge, we saw chains hanging on the side of the river. They were for boats like this one to be moored for use in the wet season when water levels became much higher than they were today.

Traps for 'Salties'

We also saw a few traps along the banks. These are for saltwater crocodiles, or 'salties', which can get into this fresh water during the wet season in spite of being 125 miles inland. They come in when the water levels are high and are treated as pests, as they can prey on the freshwater crocs and they pose threats to humans who visit the area. Because of this there is constant monitoring and removal of any that are found.

The Passage From Gorge One to Gorge Two

Our journey took us to the end of the first gorge, where a forbidding line-up of rocks demanded that visitors must come ashore and walk to the next gorge. Because we were seeing the rock art, we stayed here and took a short walk up to the walls of the gorge.

Two Kangaroos and a Man

Sadly, we went no further and the quality of the art we saw was much less than we had experienced in Kakadu and Arnhem Land. It's possible they cut the experience short, because it was an unusually hot day for this time of year, at 102 degrees Fahrenheit. Not all passengers were in good physical shape, so perhaps prudence led the organizers to decide not to risk anything more demanding. I was disappointed,

300 Foot Cliffs

The sandstone cliffs reveal the water levels here, at the end of the dry season. You can see that the river is currently well below the white 'regular' water level, and the horizontal grey shadowing above, shows how high it gets in the wet. As we returned to the train, I did my best to accept that at least I had seen part of the famed Katherine Gorge.

Red Soil Ahead

We spent the Saturday night on the train and Sunday saw Fran and I disembarking in Alice Springs, where we joined 24 other souls to explore 'The Red Centre' for a week. I will share more on that next time.