Thursday on and off the Ghan

After an eventful night of not much sleep, and the train stopping ...we found out later it was for a medical emergency.....we went on down to the dining room for a rather scrumptious breakfast.  We had arrived in Alice Springs although about 40 minutes late due to aforementioned emergency.

The coaches come quite early to pick up for the various excursions, we chose the Explore Alice option, whilst K and K chose the Desert Park Excursion , so we duly disembarked and walked quite a distance to board our respective coaches.   Our excursion took us to the School of the Air, where we had some education about the school, and we able to watch a lesson for preps in progress . The school only educates to year 9 level, and after that the students need to go away to boarding school, or do distance education.
A quick trip to Anzac Hill, and then off to our lunch break.   After lunch we visited the Royal Flying Doctor service, then the Reptile and Snake Museum.   This was interesting, as they had a crocodile which was trained to a degree.  There were lots of snakes, and again we had some education, this time regarding Australian snakes. It’s comforting to know that only two people  died from snakebite last year in Oz, whilst in Sri Lanka, 20,000 did.   This is due to the different snakes, and the available of medical help of course.

Our last visit for the day was the Pioneer Women’s  Museum , which is housed in the old Alice Springs Jail.   Not quite enough time here, due to the late start this morning.

We were back in time to have a quick rest before setting out again for out dinner under the stars at the old Telegraph station.  There we had a yummy dinner, were entertained by a two piece band, and had a talk by an astronomer ( or someone  who knew a bit about the night sky).

We also were able to see some water in the Todd River , last time we were in Alice it was dry, dry, dry
It wasn’t quite as cold as we were expecting, but just in case, the company had provided each one of us with a black velour poncho, emblazoned with the Ghan emblem.