Fifty kilometers to the north of Coober Pedy witches hats of white dirt, 20 feet tall begin to apear on the windswept plain. They are the mullock heaps, earth disgarded from the mine shaft beside each one, every gram checked for colour, opal. No humans to see, what few there are 30 feet down carefully chipping a drive forward or sorting spoil in the adjacent hut on wheels, before all that isn't opal, joins the mullock heap's pointy top through a dinosaur neck extractor. Alice Springs is 700km behind and Adelaide 700 father south as the Sturt Highway nears Coober Pedy. Those first Mullock heaps have by now coalesed into ranges with odd outliers at spots where the effort of digging outweighed the value of opal found. Suddenly the town, in a gully. One minute cold(its winter) and windy saltbush, saltbush and mullock heaps to the horison
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