540 km travelled to get to Coober Pedy a place in the middle of nowhere:, it’s a unique quirky town, it’s a working junkyard town – there is scrap metal everywhere. I did not realise that Coober Pedy is the Opal capital of Australia – it produces and exports 80% of the world opals. The weather can be brutal, but thankfully we came at the best time of the year, very manageable for us.

We booked into The Oasis Tourist  Park for two nights – on booking I noticed they offered two tours a Breakaways sunset tour and a town and mine tour. This is not usually my way of doing things, but after all our driving and stress of the last couple of days, I thought, just book it and let someone else do the driving – the best decision I made, it cost $190.00, $45 per tour per person. We then went for  late lunch at John’s pizza, great pizzas and we had leftovers for dinner – The tours  were by far the best way to see Coober Pedy for us and have a running commentary about the history and the town. George was our driver, I think he also owns the Tourist Part – he had a dry sense of humour and has done the tours in CP for over 19 years, he was brilliant, his working knowledge of the town was exceptional.

We started with the sunset tour of the Breakaways – called so as it is said to be the breakaway from the Flinders Rangers. The Kanku-Breakaways Conservation Park is Aboriginal owned and the entire park is a registered aboriginal heritage site. It was about a 40 min drive south of CP on an unsealed road, I was pleased we were sitting in a small bus enjoying a tour. The first lookout  looked over the escarpment and George said that over 70 million years ago the land was under water, hard to imagine this. It was amazing to see the dog (Dingo)fence that spanned about 5600km, there were only a few original posts left– the one we are standing next to was an original post, 70yrs old made from SA hard wood tree. The dog fence crosses the Stuart Highway near  CP where these special cattle grids span the road. It’s the longest dog fence in Australia.

George outlined some of the native flowers seen below, and highlighted some of the Aboriginal stories such as the man with his two dogs from the unique landforms (hills) the different colouration was as a result of weathering of the rock, the brown one has not weathered at all ( I could see the two dogs, one white and one brown but I couldn’t see the man) – however, I could see the camel – the sunset was specular over the Breakaways – the photos just don’t do it justice.

The day tour started at 0830, started with the underground Churches, which are listed on the state heritage register, St Peter & Pauls Catholic Church which is the oldest underground church in CP – I even rang the bell outside. We also visited the  Anglican underground church. Next we went to the opal museum underground, watched the history of opal mining in CP very informative – naturally as my birthday had just been days before I picked out a small opal ring and necklace – funny I’ve never been keen on opals – my mum use to say “they bring bad luck”, a silly reason not to like opals. We also saw the underground living conditions – from years gone by to modern day – a three bedroom home all mod cons – but I can’t get use to the fact there are no windows – the ambient temperature is fabulous about 21 degrees – outside could reach 50 degrees. Thankfully we were there at the best time the average temp was about 30 degrees Celsius – perfect. What was lacking was wild life, didn’t see much at all – even George said that there has been a steady decline of wildlife over the last few years.

 Exploring the underground mine was great and seeing how the opals are found all interesting – what was more fascinating was the millions of holes dug around CP to find opals – The landscape in CP is littered with blowers, a blower is like a giant vacuum truck, it blows not sucks. You can lease a 10mtr squared pegged claim and that only costs about $375 to register, however you have to work the mine. To do that you need a blower which is a machine that digs the hole and blows out the dirt into a big mound – the bigger the mound the more chance you have found an opal stream. It’s all too complicated for me. This is where it gets interesting you can do something called noodling, not to be confused with canoodling or eating noodles –  there are public noodling areas, you have to be mindful you are not on a pegged claim and use no digging implements, where you go through the dirt with a sieve to see if you can find pieces of opal – not my cup of tea. The people of CP were friendly and helpful, but it sure looks like a harsh life with extreme hot temperatures. Considering you would have to start work at maybe 3-4am to get your 7.5hrs work in before the heat sets in. There are lots of opal shops in town if you are looking for an opal to buy.

I went for a bike ride around town, was asked several times if I wanted to buy a painting – some ok shops nothing special. I explored a few of the streets and came upon a dead end which had a big red rock face, as I cycled down to see it – a young man was outside doing his gardening – well of sorts it was more a rock garden, he had been planting lots of pot plants. I stopped to have chat – he was about 30 came from the Blue Mountains NSW, I said ‘wow you’re a long way from home, are you here to try your luck at opal mining” – his reply “not sure, the rent is  a hell of a lot cheaper” me “do you mind if I ask how much” his reply $200 per week – come in a have a look”. Me, “thanks, sure” – it was a great house, he says he saves on air conditioning and heating – sometimes he gets a bit cold but otherwise he loves it.

Ian and I also went to see the Serbian Orthodox Church – the Church of Saint Elijah the Prophet – its really amazing again built into the hillside – the art work is exquisite and the temperature again was only about 21 degrees. Sadly I don’t think it gets used much.

For us the tragedy about CP is that there are millions of holes and mounds of dirt everywhere. When they dig a hole they are not obligated to close the hole if no opals are found – consequently there are millions of open holes literally millions: there are signs to say watch where you are walking because if you fell in a hole it would be impossible to find you. I do wonder what will happen when they have dug a million more holes looking for that elusive opal.

We enjoyed the town of CP and its uniqueness however, probably will not return – next stop Uluru.

We didn’t see much wildlife except for these beautiful Frilled neck Lizards.