I woke up in the early morning, and took a sneak peak out of the window…
Grey cloudy skies… Not what I had expected in the desert… It had rained overnight!
The landscape? Flat as a pan, red dirt, some low bush grass. Looked like planet Mars after some terraforming project…
The Nullarbor Plain is a former shallow seabed. It is crosses by the longest straight section of railway in the world (478 km) and the longest straight section of tarred road in Australia (146km).
Historically, the Nullarbor, considered by Europeans to be almost uninhabitable, was used by the semi-nomadic Aborigines.
However, European settlers were determined to cross the plain, the first successful one by Edward John Eyre in 1841.
We made a stop in the near-Ghost town of Cook. Once a ‘thriving’ nest with 40 inhabitants and school, it is now practically abandoned, due to the reduction of rail services, and has a population of four, basically catering for the trains stopping here.
I slept a bit, then realized I had not seen a single animal on the trip, and tried to watch out for Kangaroos.
However, with our train being extremely long, the animals would most likely hop away pretty far by the time I get to them, and then they would be pretty indistinguishable from the trees, the bushes and the dirt… Not a single one of them crossed my path!
Instead, I had some nice chats with other travelers in the Mathilda Café over some Australian beers.
One more night, then we’ll reach Adelaide!