Welcome to Cook. Population: 7

Our home for a few days

The view for about a day

Cook's state of the art transport systems

Best way to remedy boredom on a train? Drink cheap wine

A big sand sculpture I whipped up in Adelaide today.

Well, we made it through the three day train journey, to arrive in Adelaide this morning. After 72 hours of wearing the same boxers I think they may have started to make a radioactive humming noise. Just so you know, I could have changed them, but somehow that felt like cheating. I did have a shower though.

If you're still mildly shocked/disgusted/excited at the thought of my underwear I'll give you a minute to compose yourself...

...There you go. The first stop on our train ride was the town of Kalgoorlie. As it was about 10.30pm when we got off the train, we naturally headed to a bar for a cheeky drink. The bar we found was called The Exchange and it was gloriously seedy. Basically, the first thing you notice on entering is that the barmaids are just wearing underwear. It was kind of like walking into the film 'From Dusk til Dawn', only the population didn't turn into vampires halfway through and try to eat us.

The second day, we stopped at Cook. Once a small mining town, it now features a population of 7 people, all something to do with the railway. I was disappointed to discover such a thriving population though, as the train magazine said it was 4, probably almost halving the number for dramatic effect. (Because there are loads of towns with only 7 people in them...) In its glory days the town had a hospital and a school but you could tell they were long gone. I'm imagining it was because Cook is in the middle of the Nullarboor desert and there is nothing around it for at least 500 miles in any direction. When we arrived there were buzzards circling overhead, possibly waiting for an over enthusiastic backpacker to wander out into the desert and become food. You get the picture. Bleaker than the prospect of an intelligent conversation with a reality TV star.

Today we arrived in Adelaide, we're only here for the weekend. Tonight we are staying in a hostel with a bunch of Irish guys and a couple of girls we met on the train whilst mildly innebriated on cheap white wine. (Boxes of cheap wine are lovingly referred to as Goon. Don't know why but it seems apt somehow). I don't think there's anyone left in Ireland between the ages of 18 and 30, judging by the number we've met here. They're everywhere. Some people say China will be the next global superpower but the Irish are contenders if you ask me because there are secretly about 2 billion Irish backpackers. If you gathered them all in one place and kept them sober long enough who knows what could be achieved?

Tomorrow we are staying with some of Nick's distant relatives, his great aunt I think. They live 40km outside of Adelaide and the main reason I'm excited by this is that they breed small, Chinese, hairless, crested dogs. I don't even know what crested means on dogs but my hope is that when we turn up there will be an Aussie in a tall spinning chair who slowly turns to greet us whilst stroking one of the small dogs (Blofeld-style). When I say my hope, I actually mean my dream.