Will I strike it rich finding an Opal?

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The rains woke us up.
Goodbye Amanda. Hi Tanya.
Kangaroo spotting.

I can't believe it started pouring rain at 3:30 in the morning. When it first started I thought I'd just pull the swag cover over my head and ignore the rain. But after only a minute it was pretty apparent that the rains were not going to let up. In fact the winds picked up as well. Some of us dragged our swags into the kitchen area while some others dragged their swags over to some of the empty tents. I decided against the tents since they were not checked out the night before and who knows what sort of nasty's lurk about in those tents! I was feeling wide awake by the time I got my swag into the kitchen and found myself a space when I decided to just stay up since our wake up call was set for 4:30. Besides, my feet were all wet and I didn't want to get my sleep sheet all icky.

By the time we set out on the open road it was 5:30 and the rains had stopped and I already felt like I hade been awake for hours. We had to drive back to the main highway to change drivers. We did a lot of animal spotting because it had just rained and lots of the animals were out to get a drink of water. We saw lots of kangaroos, dingoes, rabbits and cows. Glad to report we did not create any new road kill but there were a few close encounters with a couple of kangaroos. There was this one huge kangaroo that got a bit disoriented or something and started towards our bus...NO, not towards the light! But then he smartened up and jumped back into the opposing lane and all was good again.

Once again we were treated to a brilliant sunrise. I'll never tire of looking at the reds, pinks and oranges of the morning sky. It's really a shame that my camera cannot pick up any of those colours. Mind you sometimes my pictures turn out with better colours than what I'm actually seeing so I guess it works to my advantage sometimes. 😊

Once we had more daylight we decided to play one last game of pictionary on the front windshield with Amanda. I volunteered to be the drawer this time round since Sam had been in the hot seat most of the other rounds and we were getting used to his "style" of drawing. Drawing on glass in a vehicle moving at speeds greater than 80km/hour is not the easiest thing to do and it does not help that I do not have any drawing skills. Somehow Amanda, Sam, Mandy and Di were able to decipher/interpret my cave-like drawings so it was all fun.

By mid-morning we got back to our meeting/break point for the morning and met our new driver Tanya. She didn't start the tour off with us because she was sick with the flu. It was sad to say good-bye to Amanda since she'd been a really good tour guide/driver but we had to say good-bye and welcome Tanya onboard. It must be tough joining a tour group in the middle of a tour so we all tried extra hard to make sure Tanya felt welcome.

Our first pit stop was at the Northern Territory-Southern Australia Border where we stopped to take a few photos. Nothing too exciting to see or report. Then it was hop back on the bus for another two hours before our lunch stop.

By 3PM we arrived in Coober Pedy and took a small tour around town where we stopped off at the local underground church and also had a tour of an opal mine and an example of an underground house. It was all quite interesting and weird at the same time. To cap off the tour we went noodling for Opals. Sam was hoping to find himself a big opal and cash it in so that he could say he had more than $1.80 to his name. I wasn't all that serious in looking for an opal since I believe it is probably a one in a million chance of finding one. Plus it would have taken far too much effort to actually bend down and look for one. lol Mind you Mr. Sleep-in was talking on the phone (yet again) and he was in the parking lot and found what looked like it might be worth something. Too funny...

For dinner we had pizza and then wandered over to the underground pub. Now that wasn't too exciting. Looked like any other pub you'd find above ground in a hotel. lol

Coober Pedy is an interesting little place. Temperatures can soar to 52 degrees Celsius! Crazy. Meanwhile the day we arrived it was raining and really chilly out and they were all getting excited because it hadn't rained there in months. Just our luck! Several movies were filmed here like “Mad Max III”. I only mention this because it was only mentioned to us about six times. Bottled water is expensive in Coober Pedy but apparently there is a 24 hour water dispenser where you can fill up 30L for only 20 cents! What a steal. Hmm, what else. Fresh fruits and vegetables are only delivered to the town once a week. I believe it is on Thursdays so line-ups can be seen on Thursday mornings at one of the two local grocery stores. That's about all of the interesting facts that I can remember from the town tour we went on.

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