Day 4 Coober Pedy (Aboriginal term meaning 'white men in hole'

If you’ve never experienced Coober Pedy, think of the strangest place you’ve ever been, or seen on television, now double or triple it and you will be getting close to Coober Pedy. Approaching from the road it’s obvious when you arrive that this place is different. The landscape is pockmarked with thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of piles of white rock. Each pile represents days or weeks of hard labour by a dedicated miner toiling away in the oppressive heat. The residents of the town are best described euphemistically as a unique group. If you don’t fit in, if you are running away from something or someone, then this is the place for you. However, if you have all your teeth, you certainly won’t fit in, even here. The price you have to pay for this escape, is the suffering inflicted by 50 degree heat in summer, dust, wind storms and water shortages due to the lack of rain. As I said, it’s a strange place.

We started our day ‘noodling’, the local term for searching for opals. The kids found numerous crystals but, alas, no opal. A tour through a museum of an old mine revealed the details of how one goes about actually mining for opals. It also included a tour of an underground house. To escape the searing heat, disused mine shafts are expanded, wired and plumbed to provide housing and much needed respite from the extreme weather. A trip to an underground church sated the curiosity of the religious among us. Somewhat fortuitously we noticed a sign for an opal exhibition. The exhibition turned out to be a showroom owned by an extremely friendly long-term resident of over 40 years but originally from Switzerland. He opened his shop and patiently explained the mining process and life in the area. Sweet-talking kids were given necklaces and I bought Sarah some ear rings. Generally, an interesting day. I doubt we’ll be in a hurry to return but it was worth the stop. Tomorrow is the biggest driving day of the trip- 740kms to Yulara and Ayers Rock (Uluru). Hopefully the electronic gadgets will be up to the task.