There was an off-train city tour of Kalgoorlie when we
stopped there at 10.30pm. I’ve been to Kalgoorlie before but was intrigued as
to what they could show you in the dark. Bruce organised for a man with a
wheelchair to meet me at the door of my carriage to take me to the coach and
back again on our return. It was a long train and a long walk down the
platform.
The tour was eerie. Kalgoorlie was deserted. Our three
coaches were the only sign of life. No traffic and no people. Street lights
lighting wide and empty streets. Everything shut up for the night. Even the
pubs had no signs of life.
The next morning I woke to sunrise on the big expanse of
nothing that is the Nullabor. That stretches from just outside Rawlinna sheep
station, where I woke up, to Oldea, another 9½ hours away. There ends also the
world’s longest straight stretch of track, having started 478km earlier at
Nurina, an hour past Rawlinna.
Nullabor is a Latin word meaning no trees and there are
none. It’s dust and bush. It was wide and flat and beautiful as far as the eye
could see, whichever way you looked. It was also greener than I remembered and
there were puddles. And there were puddles in Cook, halfway across. I’ve never
seen puddles in Cook.
We arrived at Cook at lunchtime. There is no platform at
Cook and it used to be a ladder down to the ground. But now, if you lift a flap
in the floor of the doorway, there are steps down to the ground. I could get
off the train and walk around a bit for some air after all. Following the
replacement of wooden sleepers with concrete, maintenance has reduced, and there
are now only two permanent residents left in Cook. I asked one of them if she
got lonely. She replied “No. I love it. I love the peace and quiet.”
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