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Coober Pedy Sign
This is one of those vacuum machines which help the miners remove the dirt from digging - it has been mounted as a town sign now Off we went to Coober Pedy which was 528kms from Port Augusta and took us about 6 hours towing the van as we only go about 85 kph to keep fuel costs low. As usual we were the young whippersnappers at the caravan park - last out of bed and last to leave - and we thought we were doing really well to be on the road at 9.15! Most of the grey nomads were on the road by 8.00! I think some of them would like to knock on our door and get us out of bed. It’s a bit like the tortoise and the hare story - they get up early and race off to the next stop in case they don’t get a good spot in the caravan park - we trundle off, ring ahead to the caravan park and make a booking and arrive just in time for cocktail hour - with a good spot because we’ve booked ahead.
What can I say about Coober Pedy - it polarises people, you either love it or hate it. It is a moonscape of dusty opal mining mullock heaps. There are no trees or grass - just these
pointy heaps as far as the eye can see. They range in colour from deep ochre red, to limestone white. And the dust - it was windy the day we were there, need I say more. But scratch the surface and this place is fascinating. It is so dry you feel you’re you are drying out with every breath - the humidity is below 25%. The town is made up of every nationality - it is so weird to drive down the main street of an outback town with Greek, Chinese, Italian and Turkish restaurants.
We went on a bus tour organised by the Greek caravan park owners, with a Greek Opal miner as the tour guide, who has lived here for 39 years - came here from Greece at 18 to look for opals. He took us onto the mining fields, where mining is now done and into an underground mine in the town - where people used to mine where they live. Most people live underground and used to mine for opals at the same time as they were digging out the hillsides to live in. The underground houses are amazing - they don’t need heating or
cooling because they remain at a constant 25 degrees and in bedrooms for instance - when you turn the light out to go to bed, there is absolutely no noise and not a skerrick of light. The local council made mining in the town vicinity illegal about 10 years ago, because people would come home from the pub and decide to dig a little deeper and they would put an explosive charge into the rock and blast away - maybe even into their neighbours lounge room. However the industrious locals have got around this law by saying that they are ‘renovating’ their house - some have used the excuse that they are adding rooms, underground swimming pools, squash courts etc, anything to keep mining. Some have found so much opal while ‘renovating’ that have actually paid for the ‘renovations’. One resident is up to 42 rooms and some do end up in their neighbours loungeroom.
There have been lots of movie scenes shot in the area: Pricilla, Queen of the Desert; Mad Max - Return to the Thunderdome; and a few others, usually science fiction.
It’s a gamblers paradise - not the poker machine type, but the opal
Scenery on outskirts of town
Outside of the town are the remnants of a dried up inland sea dating back about 180,000 years ago and the leftover of mountains mining type. There is no scientific method to predict where the opals are located, so it’s a case of buying a mining license for about $50 which lets you stake a claim anywhere you like the size of 50 metres x 100 metres and then you just start to dig. You have to mine for a minimum of 20 hours a week, but I suspect the locals have a way around this one too! You move on whenever you like to another position. Our Greek tour guide mined one claim for a couple of years with his partner, before his partner pushed him to move to another spot. A Croatian mate took over his claim after he moved on and found $125,000 worth of opal within a few days of taking over. They have invented all sorts of contraptions here to help with the digging - one is like a giant vacuum mounted on a truck (see Coober Pedy pciture).
I practiced the few Greek words I know on the Greek caravan owners and they were impressed that an Aussie knew any at all. Apart from the caravan park, they own the pizza restaurant next door and one of
Coober Pedy Golf Course
You can seen about 3 greens in this photo. The greens are sand mixed with sump oil and the fairways are just dirt. the tour companies - and I suspect they also own the underground mine/museum in the town that we visited. They came for the opals but I think they found 'gold' in other ventures. So we had one of their very good pizzas and packed up ready to head to Ayers Rock the next day.
We tried to send this one while at Ayers Rock - but there was bad reception - so had to wait until we got to Alice Springs after spending two days out of range at Kings Canyon.
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Jan & Lazza
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25% Humidity Heaven!
Now AJ you have been to Phoenix, admittedly not in the middle of summer, but 25% humidity sounds positively wet to me! Outside today it is 45degrees and 2% humidity! Hot bloody hot and dry as all hell! Love the photos keep 'em coming travel safe