I first heard about the Pichi Richi railway when I travelled over here to the Flinders Ranges with Mum and Dad around 50 years ago and so it was with some excitement that after all those years we were going to travel on that famous rail line. It's only relatively recent that the line from Woolshed Flat to Port August has been reinstated so they can run trips all the way from Port Augusta to Quorn. For that longer trip, which is what we went on, they run an original Ghan steam loco and carriages.

At the Port August Railway Station is an Institution of Engineers National Engineering Landmark plaque acknowledging the construction of the 1690km long railway line from Port Augusta to Kalgoolie between 1912-1917 . That includes a world record 478km length of straight track between Ooldea and Nurina. Shortly before our train arrived a very long freight train travelling West, presumably to Perth or Alice Springs/Darwin, passed through the station and it had several double decker container and even a triple decker car carrier wagons. Shortly before the 10:30am departure time, we along with another 180 or so passengers boarded and we set off for the nearly 2 hour trip to Quorn.

The bench style seats along each side of the carriage looked well padded, but they'd obviously had many bums on them over the years and we sank a long way further down than expected as we took our seats! Along the way the landscape provided ever changing views out of the carriage windows and there was much jostling for good photographic vantage spots on the open area between carriages as the train went around bends, particularly when it was through a cutting or over a bridge. We had a couple of hours to spend in Quorn before the train returned and while many flooded into the pubs and cafes for lunch, we enjoyed a nice picnic lunch we'd prepared and then a walk about the town . One of the buildings noted the movies that had been filmed in and around Quorn: Bitter Springs 1950, Walk About 1952, Robbery Under Arms 1956, The Sundowners 1960, Sunday Too Far Away 1975, Gallipoli 1980, The Last Frontier 1985 and The Shiralee 1987. On the return journey we saw a very impressive long length of more than 100 year old stone drywall which support the rail line on a curved embankment. we arrived back at Port Augusta around 4:30pm after a very enjoyable day.

One of our gas cylinders had run out and while we were able to switch to the second, I decided to use the "swap and go" at the Shell service station next door to the caravan park. The caravan park is in West Port Augusta where as the sign says, you take the Stuart Highway north to Darwin (Northern Territory) or the Eyre Highway west to Perth (Western Australia). As we saw that walking back to the caravan park with our new gas cylinder we wondered which of those routes we'd be taking when we next came to Port Augusta.

Incidentally when we got back to the caravan park there was another Adria parked next to us. Adria isn't a common brand and so this was very unusual. The couple and their two kids were from around Shepparton and had just bought the caravan after deciding they'd had enough of getting wet in their campervan. They were off to Uluru for the school holidays.

Dinner was chicken tenders with pasta salad, followed by peaches and banana for desert.