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There was a couple in Maralinga who mentioned in conversation they were going to do the Anne Beadell track with Jim and Pam. Merv's ears pricked - this is his brother. We had a chat and during the day, yesterday, there was some talk they would do the 'Caravan Track' to Cook (if you google Caravan Track you will learn more about it - very interesting). We asked if we could tag along and they said yes (because of our connection to Jim). Our pass for Maralinga included the paperwork we needed to be on 'Maralinga' land.
Three vehicles took off. We tagged along at the back. After a visit to the quarry at Watson (on the railway line) we went back to where Robin showed us to turn off - a goat track. The directions were: follow the road, when you get to a 'Y' intersection go straight ahead. When you get to a tyre with a star picket with a billy can on top, turn left. That will take you to Cook.
Hmmm
The road had a lot of limestone rocks so the going was slow. We were just south of the sand dunes for a while and stopped for lunch in a lovely spot. We came to the 'Y' intersection, which was different to how it was explained.
The leader turned left and we all followed across the Nullarbor plain - and it was treeless. I don't know how far it was but it seemed to go on forever. We stopped at one stage and wondered if we should have taken the right track, but it was too late to turn back, we had to keep going. At least we knew we had to go south west and we would at least hit the railway line.
Believe it or not, we eventually reached the tyre (pictured). We turned left and thought we were not far from Cook. Wrong again.
Down the track blue bush (or salt bush) grew in abundance. After we travelled quite a way we came to the abandoned rabbit trappers camp, stopped and had a good look around. I would hate to have to do what they did - so far from anywhere.
Not far down the track we saw the Cook Telstra tower and knew were were about 20 km away. As we got closer to Cook the bushes were green.
Cook was a major town on the east-west railway but now there are only 3 couples living there. Our friends decided to camp in the old school grounds and we headed off to Nullarbor (after we did our Supercoach).
The road was good but there were lots of limestone rocky parts. We travelled along at 70 - 80kpm, and saw one rabbit. We had to use our jerry can of fuel about 10km from the Eyre Highway, just as it was turning dark.
We got into Nullarbor at 8pm. Our room was $159!!!
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