Number two on our must-do list was a ride on the heritage Pichi Richi Railway. If you are in the vicinity of Port Augusta, we highly recommend this day trip, with its tie-in lunch served at one of the pubs in Quorn at outward journey's end. It's a distance of about 40 km from the Port to little town of Quorn. The train is drawn along at a leisurely pace by a wonderful old steam locomotive, which has been beautifully restored and maintained by enthusiastic volunteers. The carriages too, have been very nicely worked, with seating fore and aft as they were back in times past. Apparently the journeys on the old Ghan system which these trains ran, were something of a challenge back in the day. Of course they penetrated inland way further than the short, pleasant trip of today.

Quorn itself is pretty much as it has been since early times, mainly old buildings nicely preserved, with a well maintained station for the train. 

It seemed to your correspondent that b&w would be quite appropriate for the image of this beautiful example of transportation in times past. Apparently these beasts plied the length of the Ghan line back when the journey was nothing to sneeze at! Timetables were not very meaningful on the run back then, so they say.

Fore-and-aft seating meant the passengers were so much more in touch with each other. A fair proportion of the clients were grey nomads and 'vintage' citizens. As they say, 'a good time was had by all'. A trainload of happy travellers..

One of the attractions of the journey was the scenery of eye-catching landforms as the train climbed into the mountain country beyond Pt Augusta. I had some doubts about whether the loco would easily cope with the climb, but it chugged away into the hills with little fuss.

Quorn station's state of preservation is a credit to the heritage railway's members. The clients strolled from here, just across the road to enjoy a full lunch at either of two pubs. There were also a couple of take-away outlets for those who preferred to eat light. We chose to have a sit-down three course meal of good straight-forward pub fare, all very enjoyable. 

Quorn has the flavour of yesteryear about it. We didn't find out how much the town depends on the P.R. Railway to help keep it ticking over, but it must surely assist, with a couple of trains-full of enthusiastic patrons a week.

Quorn's Victorian vintage town hall with its quaint door-pillar guardians and contemporary features, drips with the style of those times and the benefit of a modern make-over to please the eye of folk who appreciate it.. like us! 

One for the history and artillery buffs! This interesting smooth-bore gun mounted outside Quorn Station, was used by Turkish forces opposing the troopers of the Australian Light Horse who made the famous charge at Beersheba in the middle-eastern campaign of the Great War. Such a weapon would probably have been used with so-called 'canister', akin to a giant shotgun with devastating results at short range on those opposing. Very nasty! The gun was captured by the victorious troopers.

As the train made its unhurried way back to the Port in mid afternoon we had plenty of time to soak in the scenery again, and wave at the various people positioning themselves at strategic points to view and photograph the passing spectacle of the chuffing veteran. These included a wedding party at an out-of-town location who suspended their group photo-shoot to wave and yell at us with nuptial-day gusto. We rolled into Pt Augusta Station well before sundown, in good time for a late afternoon tea. We're mighty glad we went!