Rough Red

The Journey fromAdelaide to Alice Springs

April 2003

Ghan

Railway

Line

Day One Adelaide to Melrose Bitumen all the way

Day TwoMelrose 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, 1876 - Australia Twice Traversed)

Day Two

The Ladies & The Vehicles

Judge Moss atLake 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 TwoCoward Springs

An Oasis in the Desert

Day Three

Coward Springs to Dalhousie Springs via

William Creek

Algebuckina BridgeOodnadatta

Day Three

An example of what can happenon the road

Day Three

Dalhousie Springs

Day Four

Dalhousie Springs to Oak Valley via

Finke

FinkeRiver

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