The entire trip from Adelaide to Darwin lasts 48 hours. Choosing to take only the second half, we flew from Sydney to pick up the train at the inland city of Alice Springs.
Also on Tuesday, a Qantas Boeing 717 sustained minor damage to its fuselage when it was struck by lightning during a domestic flight between Alice Springs and Darwin.
With the profile of a dinosaur and the texture of a rose bush, a thorny devil in Alice Springs Desert Park looks like trouble, but this slow-moving, six- inch [15-centimeter] lizard eats only ants.
The contrast is most vivid in a fringe of 18 settlements around Alice Springs known as the town camps.
A military sand dragon poses in the red sands of Australia's Alice Springs Desert Park.
