Maralinga Tjarutja

In the blink of an eye — at 11:00a — the time changed to 1:30p … to put us on South Australia time. We lost 1 hour to the time zone change + 1 hour to Daylight Saving Time (which WA does not follow, but SA does) + 30 minutes to that weird time adjustment around Eucla. Our day, thus, suddenly went from being 24 hours long to 21.5 hours long.

Nonetheless, we had an off-train experience to enjoy.

Cook — which once boasted a population of 200 — was established in 1917 to support the maintenance of the Trans Australian Railway. There were several other settlements like Cook — one every 18 miles or so — but none of them have survived to this day.

Located on the world’s longest straight stretch of rail track — 297 miles give or take a few rounding points — this small outback settlement is more a ghost town than not. That said, there are people living here. According to the brochure included in our info packet, the IP provisions the few residents who call this place home. In turn, they provide the fuel and water the IP needs.

The plan was for the train to make two stops. The first one would water the cars in the first half of the train. Then, the train would move to do the same for the rest of the cars. At that point, we’d be allowed off the train for about 30 minutes to stretch our legs.

Well, the watering of the train was taking longer than expected, so we were allowed off before the train was moved. Which meant that we had a longer walk to the head of the train … our main goal being getting a photo of the engine that is pulling our nearly .6-mile long train. We managed to do that … and then wandered around the ruins of the buildings … despite the pesky flies and the drizzle. The flies are apparently the norm; the rain not so much. In fact, a two-year veteran of the IP later told us that this was the first time she has encountered rain in Cook.

With no public address system available, the town’s fire siren was used to advise us when it was time to re-embark the train. Which we duly did. Then the train moved forward a bit and stopped to water the remaining cars. And here we’ve been sitting for the past hour and a half. Not sure what the delay is all about. At least we have 5G cell signal to entertain us.

Update: Finally, a little before 5:00p we were on the move again. The reason for the delay? A cryptic “problem with the loco (aka the locomotive).” This means that we’ll be a little late getting into Adelaide tomorrow.Read more