Cooking in Cook

We had decided to visit a remote railway depot of the Indian Pacific Railway line called Cook, located at the end of a 105km dirt road. Warning sign at the entrance: road not maintained, not suitable for 2WD, dry weather only.

It started well enough, although slower than predicted. Only 30km from arrival, black clouds started to gather. A sense of unease hit us. Quite rightly, because it destroys dirt roads, if you are caught on one when it's wet, the fine is several thousand dollars per wheel, including the spare wheel.

When wet, it usually takes one week for the road to dry off and be usable again. To top it off, the temperature was 45C/113F, feeling like 47C/116F said the meteo! Yes!! Indeed. Talking about cooking in Cook! For the first time, the bus aircon was not coping. Even though the air felt very cold if we put our hand on the vent, it was only hot air by the time it reached our face 20cm away.

We pushed on, hoping for the best. The road deteriorated. The belt was slipping and screeching with the heat and the dust, the dashcam was beeping in protest, bull dust holes were so deep we could reach Europe. Finally, a screw from the overhead cab aircon unit fell on my head, leaving me wondering what had attacked me.

Cook was such a forlorn place that we could not contemplate being stuck there for a week. We saw rain falling in the distance on the left hand side of the road, we turned back. The race was on. We made it just in time.

When I looked towards the back of our bus, I saw that the plastic cover of our split aircon had collapsed onto the bed and a thick coat of red dust was covering everything.. We will just have to pretend that the red stuff in our plates is paprika.

6h of driving and not a single photo of Cook.... Such are travel vagaries.

========================================================

Cook, South Australia