Rough Red The Journey from Adelaide to Alice Springs April 2003

Ghan Railway Line

Day One  Adelaide to Melrose  Bitumen all the way

Day Two Melrose to Coward Springs via  Quorn  Hawker  Parachilna  Leigh Creek  Maree  Skirting Lake Eyre South

Day Two Railway Sidings

‘The flies kept eating into our eyes, which were already bad enough. This seemed to be the only object for which these wretches were invented and lived, and they also seemed to be quite ready and willing to die, rather than desist a moment from their occupation. Every little sore or wound on the hands or face was covered by them in swarms; they scorned to use their wings, they preferred walking to flying; we might kill them in millions, yet other, and hungrier millions would still come on, rejoicing in the death of their predecessors – as they now had not only men’s eyes and wounds to eat, but could batten upon the bodies of their slaughtered friends.’ (Ernest Giles, Australia Twice Traversed)

Day Two The Ladies & The Vehicles Judge Moss at Lake Eyre

Day Two Lake Eyre - The Horizon

‘The dominant characteristics of natural Australian scenery, are greyness, age, loneliness, stillness, and, above all, peace. Rome, Greece, Egypt, Babylon, are of yesterday compared with the age-long sameness of our great silent continent. The turmoil of history has passed this land by. Before ever the mushroom growth of the human race had sprung up, countless millions of suns had arisen, shone upon the great desert disk of the interior; just as it is today, and sunk in a blaze of red.’ (Cecil Madigan, 1939, (Simpson Desert),Crossing the Dead Heart)

Day Two Coward Springs An Oasis in the Desert

Day Three Coward Springs to Dalhousie Springs via  William Creek  Algebuckina Bridge  Oodnadatta

Day Three An example of what can happen on the road

Day Three Dalhousie Springs

Day Four Dalhousie Springs to Oak Valley via  Finke Finke River

Day Five Oak Valley to Alice Springs A rough sandy road

Day Five Arrived At Last!

In Case You Haven’t Heard! Some of the natural wonders around ‘the Alice’ Ross River Gorge Palm Valley

In Case You Haven’t Heard! Redbank Gorge

In Case You Haven’t Heard! Ormiston Gorge

In Case You Haven’t Heard! Kings Canyon

In Case You Haven’t Heard! Uluru