Blogs from Coober Pedy, South Australia, Australia, Oceania - page 11

Today was arguably half of one of the most inefficient pieces of travel in recent times - I was to drive ~600km to spend a night in Coober Pedy, before coming all the way back tomorrow. With Coober Pedy being the opal mining capital of the world, one third of its inhabitants living underground, and the surrounding landscape providing a post-apocalyptic backdrop to films such as "Mad Max 3", it seemed a genuinely unique place to visit, so efficiency be damned. The road north from Adelaide was designed to be curvilinear, in order to give drivers a more interesting journey and prevent them dropping off. The countryside was impressive in its bareness - a lot of low scrub, occasionally with trees, and every so often a patch of startling red earth. Near Port Augusta there were ... read more

I can't believe I have now been to Coober Pedy. After so many months of wanting to go to this little town I now have! It had a quirky little atmosphere, with people's front doors being on the side of large rocks, leading you to an underground house...we did a tour in one of them and the temperature is just right, you can't hear any sound from outside, and it is completely pitch black with no lights, allowing you to sleep well at any time of the day. There are so many different nationalities living here, all in hope to pursue their dream of finding opals. (coober pedy is the world's capital for opals) I did a tiny bit of noodling, which is where you search in the heaps that they leave behind from mining, and ... read more

Coober Pedy, now what can we say...... Bizzarre, odd, wierd....the list goes on... Half of the people live under the ground level in purpose built caves, as the weather is so hot!!!! Mad Max 3 was filmed here!!! It is said that it is the best place on earth to hide a dead body....there are 1000's of holes everywhere, as it is the Opal capital in the world!!!! Needless to say, we only stayed 2 nights here :)... read more

On Tuesday morning we were allowed a lie-in (up at 5.30am) before driving back to the Erldunda roadhouse. Here, 10 members left the group (to go back to Alice) and 1 joined - leaving 9 of us to travel on to Adelaide. We spent the day travelling through some amazingly remote country stopping only at the South Australian border and then, many dusty miles later, for fish and chips at a roadhouse at Marla. That evening we arrived in Coober Pedy famous for Opal mining, 30m deep abandoned mine shafts (walking the opal fields in not recommended) and being the place where the people live underground in rock chambers in order to escape the heat (and continue their never-ending search for riches from the comfort of their own living room!). After a meal at a Greek ... read more

Hi! Sorry everyone - getting a bit behind on the blog and only 4 mins till t'internet runs out but will update soon! Currently in Coober Pedy, halfway between Adelaide and Alice Springs! We drove up here in our camper van (Morrison hee hee) today and arrived in time to buy some opals and look at the crazy underground houses (it's about 50C here in summer) and see the Mad Max props left over from when they filmed it here and have a bbq. sweet. Uluru tomorrow!... read more