Indian Pacific 3

Our plans for a couple of hours more sleep were thwarted when shortly after leaving Rawlinna it was announced that the clocks were going forward 2 1/2 hours, whereas at the briefing we were told this would happen around mid-afternoon.   Another irritating mis-communication, albeit minor, but because we'd had the bacon rolls at Rawlinna, a kind of brunch was being served between 11:30 and 14:30 and in a stroke it was suddenly time to eat again.

The next few hours were spent crossing the Nullarbor Plain.  The Nullarbor (Latin for No Trees) is part of the flat, almost treeless, arid area of southern Australia and is the world's largest single expanse of limestone bedrock.  At its widest point, it stretches about 1,100 kilometres from west to east across the border between Western and South Australia.

The railway line has the longest straight section of railway in the world (478 km without the slightest hint of a bend) and, should you be mad enough to drive it, the Eyre Highway contains the longest straight section of tarred road in Australia (146 km).

As you would imagine, the scenery wasn't particularly spectacular.

But we did spot a few (out of focus) kangaroos.

Although neither of us were feeling hungry we made our way along to the dining car and did our best to enjoy the food.

Around 15:00 we arrived at Cook, once a thriving Nullarbor town with about 200 residents, its own hospital, school, shops and even a golf course.  With the privatisation of the railways in 1997 the town was effectively closed and today Cook has a permanent population of 4 and serves solely as a refuelling station for the Indian Pacific.

This is us to a tee (in more than one sense of the word).

Alongside the railway line are the historic jail cells, essentially two very small corrugated iron sheds built to house criminals found wandering around on the Nullarbor and held there until the next train came along.  The cells are matching "his" and "hers" complete with bars, padlocks and their own jailhouse rock!

Once the Main Street.  

This couple live here 2 weeks on/two weeks off (got to be slightly bonkers)

The refuelling containers.

It was blisteringly hot and even with hats and a supply of water we struggled to move too fast or too far, so before long we headed back to the relative cool of the cabin.

We elected for an early dinner and for the first time we were sat with another couple (we knew dining was in fours but up to now our coughing and spluttering has ensured we've dined alone, or were there "unclean" signs hanging on our backs?)  Our fellow diners were from Switzerland and spoke very good English, father and daughter spending 5 weeks travelling together before she met up with her boyfriend to continue her travels.  Unfortunately Ian and I both felt so rough, we could barely converse with them.

We skipped the starters and both chose roast chicken breast for mains, sadly when it arrived I took one look at it and knew I wouldn't be able to eat it.  It was HUGE and there is not a chicken on this planet able to produce a breast of that size so we can only assume it was somehow reformed/reshaped out of several pieces and shoved into netting, rather like a gammon joint (you could even see the netting marks).  Not being a meat lover in the first place I was intimidated by the sheer size of it and the lack of vegetables.  I gave it back to the waitress and tried to explain that it was nothing to do with the food (it was) just me being fussy - Ian tried to eat his and could barely get his knife through it was so tough.  We made our apologies to the Swiss and slipped.

On the way back through the lounge carriage Ian bumped into Damian who was the co-ordinator for our set of carriages and explained we still weren't feeling well.  He very kindly offered to find us something else to eat and ended up making us cheese and tomato sandwiches which he personally delivered to our cabin.  He said he'd also arrange for a breakfast fruit platter to be bought to us at 06:30 the following morning to save us having to go to the dining carriage.  Very kind and the sandwich was delicious.