Blogs from Coober Pedy, South Australia, Australia, Oceania
Alice Springs to Coober Pedy
Published: March 27th 2012Oceania » Australia » South Australia » Coober Pedy
March 24th 2012
Today was the first of a 3 day tour from Alice Springs to Coober Pedy and it was an early start with the bus arriving at 6.30am. It was a 20 seater bus with a separate trailer for our luggage, so we packed our luggage into the trailer and climbed aboard the bus. We were the first to be picked up and there was only 8 people in total, so there was lots of room to spread out. We met our tour guide Sam, and the other people on the tour; 2 German girls, 1 Swiss and 1 girl from Greenland and 67 year old friend of the company who works as a chef at a hostel in Alice Springs but was using the tour as a way to start his holiday down to Adelaide. We ... read more
October 29th 2011
Hey, second day at Coober Pedy. Spent yesterday afternoon exploring the Breakaways, hills 30kms from town, very spectacular, then survived the big storm that blew in, very, very windy and lots of great lightning but little to no rain. This morning we have done the underground opal mine exploration before trying to check into our hotel, Desert Cave for a nice night and dinner. Off to south of Kulgera tomorrow, big drive with not much to see like yesterday! There is lots of nothing out here...... Trouble coping with computer access or lack of! Anything modern seems to give the wireless access cafe's the wobbles but using their circa 1985 computers with modern web sites and apps is just not a good mix......currently typing this in the office of the Hotel....as their wireless seems to only ... read more
Shopping for Opal in Coober Pedy
Published: September 22nd 2011Oceania » Australia » South Australia » Coober Pedy
September 3rd 2011
I hopped on yet another bus in the morning and headed out of the Northern Territory and down in South Australia. I got to Coober Pedy at 6:30pm. The hostel I was staying at came and picked me up from the bus station. I decided to stay at Radeka's underground hostel. Because of how hot it normally is in Coober Pedy a lot of the residents live in underground homes. It can get upwards of 50 degrees during the day and underground it stays a nice 24 degrees. In the winter it stays a nice 24 degrees as well so it's the perfect place to live. So I got checked in and headed underground. So cool! All the toilets, showers and kitchen are above ground but the dorm beds and some private rooms are all down ... read more
August 23rd 2011
Arrived in Coober Pedy yesterday after a long drive from Port Augusta. We passed through many sheep stations along the way. The soil is slowing turning to outback red as we head further in land. There were some spectacular slat lakes along the way. At Glendambo we refueled the car and then drove a short distance on to Woomera - the old rocket range - and had a look around. Will would like to build a rocket when we get back to Melbourne. Grace and Will are having a rest this afternoon. Will has done an aboriginal style painting of a kangaroo and Grace is doing one of the random stuff. We'll take some photos and send them back. We had a look around Coober Pedy today and went in to some underground buildings including the ... read more
August 5th 2011
Here I am at 3.25am adding to a bloody blog because I can’t sleep. How old am I again? There is a storm outside that is mostly thunder & lightning with only small spurts of rain. I’m pretty sure that the miner named David that I met yesterday said that it only rains twice or three times a year in Coober Pedy. What are the chances??? Not that I’m particularly upset though. I threw the tarps up as soon as I heard the first drops so things should be a lot better than at Burrum Heads when all of our sleeping gear got soaked! Yesterday we wandered around the town & looked at some of the cool stuff underground. First stop was The Old Timers Mine. It is pretty much in the middle of town & ... read more
Alice to Uluru to Coober Pedy
Published: August 3rd 2011Oceania » Australia » South Australia » Coober Pedy
August 4th 2011
Now where was I??? Ahh yes. Numerous typing errors & Alice Springs. We ended up staying at the BIG 4 in Alice Springs for two nights. We spent Sunday travelling through the beginning of the West McDonnell Ranges. First stop was at Simpson’s Gap. It is a break in the range following creek that they used to transport defence force gear north during WWII. From there we potted about a bit as the scenery was awesome. Took some photos & stuff like that. Eventually Suz decided on visiting an old Lutheran mission called Hermannsburg that had some interesting history & beautiful paintings by a famous Aboriginal landscape artist named Albert Namatjira. That took us a fair while so we headed back to camp via yet another servo. The camp had some cool things like a didgeridoo ... read more
July 14th 2011
Our last evening in Broken Hill saw us shudder in the small and discreet earth tremor and we had our little person off on her own adventure with Daddy to hospital with asthma. All is fine and appears ok but as the Smith family holiday is never a dull moment we thought we may have some downtime in Port Augusta on Wednesday evening. Thankfully we had booked our site early as campervans were flooding in all evening. After a quick bite to eat, an early bedtime was had by all. We have arrived safe & sound in Coober Pedy and I'd love to say that the weather is beautiful & that we have been enjoying fabulous bbq's every evening for tea. We'd love to say that we have enjoyed the travel on beautiful days with the ... read more
July 14th 2011
Our latest pics. Remember to click on the first photo and you can then see the rest.... read more
June 19th 2011
Hello again, Well we survived our first night in Woomera. The park was very basic but did the trick. First night away in the van, took a while to get sorted, but we finally managed to get Dinner, had a BBQ, not cold outside, quite pleasent, although it did get rather cold later at night. Thank god for the portable heater! Some awesome views of the Flinders Ranges on the way up. We drove along side them, they are very picturesque. Have to made a seperate trip there one day. We headed off for Coober Pedy about 9am the next morning, after a quick breakfast, forgot the milk, so toast it was!!! Stopped in at SPUDS Roadhouse for fuel ($1.69 per litre). We also stopped at "the middle of nowhere" (Matt's description) and had a kick ... read more
Marla / Coober Pedy / Pimba / Kimba / Streaky Bay, S.A.
Published: July 5th 2011Oceania » Australia » South Australia » Coober Pedy
June 13th 2011
6 - 12 June 2011 After a long drive from Yulara we stayed at Marla for a night before hitting the road again in the direction of Coober Pedy. We simply couldn't go to Outback South Australia without a visit to the opal capital of the world. It was an interesting place but not everyone's cup of tea I would imagine.. Driving into Coober Pedy was bizarre as there were mines for as far as the eye could see (some active, some no longer in operation). We visited the Old Timers Mine and did a self-guided tour, complete with hard hats and all! This part of Coober Pedy was the highlight - the tour was so informative and gave us a real life insight into how the miners lived back in the day. We could see ... read more
