The Ghan was certainly a journey to remember, it was like the Hogwarts Express in Harry Potter. We pulled up to the train station in Alice Springs and could not believe the size of it. It is about 1km in length with about 30 carriages, consisting of a car carrier, several lounges and dining carriages, a luggage hold etc. There is 3 classes - red, gold and platinum service. As you can guess we were in platinum until one of the staff members threw us out, so into the red for us! Haha only joking, but we were in the red service. We got a reclining chair with ample foot room, even enough leg room for the lurches, two showers and a dining area. For a small fee of $10 you could have access to the lounge area with unlimited supply of tea, coffee and cakes - but we had our lovely mouldy cheese sarnies to eat with soggy tomatoes on warm wet bread, yum tasty! so why spend $10!? We are really getting into the backpacking spirit now.. Unlimited smart price cheese and tomato sandwiches.. No expensive meals for us. We tried to have a nosey at the gold service carriages, but they were locked, It looks like you get your own cabin. We have heard that with the platinum service you get chefs on tap... not sure how true that is. About 4 hours into the journey we arrived at Katherine, where we had the opportunity to do a fly-by tour of Katherine Gorge. The train offered a variety of quick tours at our cost of course. We were going to get a taxi into the town to have a look around but we got a hot tip off one of the staff members that the hot springs are amazing. And if you get a mini bus full of people, it only costs about $2 return in fares. We weren't too bothered about seeing the gorge since we had already seen plenty of beautiful places in Kakadu and Lichfield that are similar. And speaking to some people that had just been to the gorge, they said it was 'ok'.

The hot springs ran alongside the Katherine river not far from the train station. The water was crystal clear and turquoise blue in colour. It was surrounded by a mini jungle of trees creating a canopy over the hot springs, with lots of very large spiders in their huge webs hung high above us from the leaves. The hot springs had a lazy river dropping into a deep pool with a rush of water over the slippery rocks separating the two. It seems to be a popular place with the local kids that enjoyed jumping from the trees into the water - little sods! Whilst here, we were approached by an old drunken aborigine saying that he welcomes us to his country - that was quite nice. We got introduced to his son or something too, who was very proud to introduce his wife... She certainly wasn't a looker, we looked at him in horror initially, it was pretty funny! We then headed back to the train for a continuous 19 hour ride through the night to Alice Springs. The reclining chairs were pretty difficult to sleep on because there is no leg rest to elevate your legs - apart from that the journey flew by.

Alice Springs is a small town with lots of aborigines floating around. They are trying to make this the first Solar City in the world, hence the reason there is quite a few buildings and homes with solar panels - James was carrying out some investigations.

The traffic light systems in the Northern Territory are crazy! We reckon the pedestrian crossing system was designed by the aborigines... You press the button, wait for hours, the green man appears so you cross whilst the traffic lights for the cars turning the corner have gone green too.. It doesn't make sense!

James did what he does best on Thursday... spend spend spend! He kitted himself out to be Mick Dundee for The Rock Tour we would be doing - the breathable cream coloured long sleeve shirt, a fisherman style hat and lots of different lotions and potions to try and keep the mozzies at bay. He then spent the rest of the day moaning about how much money he spent, along with the fact that it is extremely difficult to get free wifi anywhere!

We went to a local outback bar in the town on Friday night. We were expecting it to be busy but unfortunately it wasn't. On the way back we saw an extremely drunk aborigine lying in the road with blood pouring from his mouth, surrounded by the police! Oh dear... I think the bouncers of the bar we were in had something to do with that.

Lauren x