Gismo Queen and her King

Wilpena Pound to Terowie - Saturday 15th August

Up for breakfast and showers before pack up, as we were leaving the Flinders Ranges today. No hurry, so it wasn't until 10:30am before we were on the road. Which left us in a quandary, as Greg wanted to see the Pichi Pichi Railway in Quorn and we had already researched that there was a special steam train coming into Quorn today from Port Augusta. So we hot footed it the 121km down the road and arrived 10 minutes before the train did! We were only metres away from the Afghan Express, as it steamed into Quorn Railway Station.

The Afghan Express is the name railwaymen gave to the passenger train that ran from Terowie (ironically, where we are camped tonight, only metres from the old Terowie railway station! But more on that later!) to Oodnadatta through Quorn in 1923. This was the first time a sleeping carriage was included on the train and when an Afghan passenger alighted at Quorn to recit his evening prayers, the train was dubbed the Afghan Express  by the railwaymen. In time, this was abbreviated to The Ghan, as we all now know it.

Nowadays, a restored steam engine and wooden carriages travel a couple of times a month as a special on the Pichi Pichi Railway from Port Augusta to Quorn (and back). We enjoyed seeing it steam into town.

We then had to very quickly move to the local cafe to beat the train passengers to lunch. We had really enjoyed our visit to the Quandong Cafe last time when we were in Quorn so we parked just in time! We had fabulous "railway sleeper" toasties and milk shakes which we thoroughly enjoyed. After lunch, we headed into farming country through Wilmington, Oororoo, Peterborough amd down to Terowie.

Terowie is a bit of a ghost town these days, after being the train change point between narrow gauge and standard gauge. We shall have a walk around in the morning and check out the history. In the meantime, we are parked about 10m from the train platform and I look forward to watching the sun rise over the platform in the morning. A very unique place!

posted by Tracey @ 7:27 pm