Tour of Coober Pedy

The featured image was taken from the tour bus and shows a typical opal mining landscape of dumps.

Today we got up a bit later than usual and had a quiet morning at the caravan park. I got washing done and backed up our trip photos from one hard drive to another. At home, I back up everything to the cloud, but am relying on external hard drives during our travels as it would be much to expensive to upload everything as we go.

I handwashed yesterday’s clothes, hung them on the line, then when they stopped dripping, hung them in the shower recess. Stephen went for a walk, but just locally.

Our tour was most comprehensive. We explored a couple of the opal mining areas whilst our driver explained what everything meant. He spoke from experience of having been an opal miner himself. He now does guiding/driving, some shifts at the Caltex Station, and some community work. We were being shown around by someone who loves this town. He came here when he was quite young, and has lived here most of the time since. His wife lives in Adelaide, and even though they are discussing retirement, there is still the issue of him wanting to live here (he has an underground home) and her wanting to live in Adelaide.

We went out to a beautiful scarp called the Breakaways, which is the edge of the Stuart Ranges. He said that he and other people would go there for picnics and camping, but that is no longer allowed as it is a protected area.

He showed us around the town, community projects, and explained that all of the trees in the town had been planted by residents and were watered by the town’s waste water.  We saw the Dingo Fence, the Moon Plains, an underground home, and an underground mine and museum. At the end of the day we went to a beautiful Serbian church – also underground.

The tour ran from 1.00 p.m. to 6.00 p.m. and we felt quite fulfilled by the end – that if we missed anything, well it wasn’t because he hadn’t tried to show us everything. It was tiring and the cup of tea came rather late in the day (note to self, take a thermos of tea with me next time).

I have lots more photos from today, but maybe this is enough for now. I’m very tired and it is after 10.00 p.m.