September 7th,

A rather uneventful day as we travelled east and south to Port Augusta., The country in this area always lacks significant growth and can be very grey in colour. This year because of winter rains the scene is quite green.
The main interest for the day has been the train line. We camped about 30 metres from the line last night at Kingoonya. Three trains went through in the dark hours..we certainly heard them and saw the their lights.

After completing Googs Track we first crossed the line at Malbooma. We were close to the line all the way down the Stuart Highway until this evening.. about 28 hours. In that time we saw 19 freight trains. Some have had two engines at the front, some have an engine at the front and another at the rear and we even saw one with three engines. The trains can be up to two kilometres in length. Some are servicing mines around Coober Pedy transporting ore south to be processed.
The line runs to Perth, Western Australia and to Darwin in the Northern Territory with the junction at Tarcoola. The Ghan Train and the Trans Continental Train travel twice a week but we did not see them. Often the train drivers gave us a cheery 'toot' of their whistle as we watched them go by.

Arrival into the Mt Remarkable National Park caused us both to think of the 'Parklands'; property where I grew up at Greta, Victoria. The RiverRed Gums....eucalyptus camaldulensis  are huge and old with colouful trunks. We look forward to exploring it more tomorrow.