Wednesday 11^th July

Only a short drive today to a village named Quorn which again had been recommended. 

The one attraction Quorn offers the visitor is a ride on the “Pichi Richi Railway”. This railway is a small section of the old Ghan railway which stretched from Port Augusta in South Australia to Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. The Ghan actually started in the late 1800s with the grandiose dream of linking Adelaide in the south to Darwin in the north. Floods and other problems resulted in an unreliable train service and the extension to Alice Springs was only completed in the late 1920s. Before that time, the Ghan only went as far as Oodnadatta and passengers continued their journey to the Alice on Afghani-led camels. The Ghan derives its name from the Afghans who led the camel trains. The old Ghan was a colorful, if somewhat rickety, train and it starred in the Australian film Mad Max III, after which it was rarely used.

The name Pichi Richi is thought to be a corruption of the word “pituri”. This plant or bush (Duboisia hopwoodii) was used and traded widely by aboriginal people in arid areas. Its main use was to poison waterholes to stupefy the emus making them easier to catch.  It was also used as a narcotic. The dried pituri leaves and stems were collected and sewn into string bags for the transport of their belongings.

Whilst on this journey we met another couple from Canberra – the first ones so far, so are Canberrans staying home?

Following the trip we found a delightful art gallery run by a resident artist displaying over 300 wonderful watercolours featuring many of the regions and places we have just visited.

A trip into a little craft shop was rewarded with a great bottle of chilli pickled onions – ohh the heat is only just bearable.

This evening we found a camping spot at Woolshed Flat – just down the road from where the railway had taken us earlier that day. This was only the 2^nd night during our trip that we were camped alone  - other nights we are always joined by other campers and caravanners.