Riding Across Stony Desert Country: Kulgera NT to Coober Pedy SA: 29 Oct 2012

Dave and I booked a cabin at Kulgera roadhouse, which is near the Northern Territory and South Australian border, and arrived in sweltering heat to find we had a little donga with just a bed in it. But it had air conditioning; outback luxury! The little pub served good meals and at least the drinks were not too dear to buy. I was hanging out for a glass of wine that didn't cost as much as an expensive bottle of wine in Perth. The alcohol prices at Uluru (Ayres Rock) and Kings Canyon had been expensive enough to make one become a teetotaller.

Because of the 40 degree heat the next day, we were riding early to get to Coober Pedy in South Australia. The country made us think of the Nullarbor Plains; very similar, with a huge dry inland sea to be imagined all around. On the west side of us was the Great Victorian Desert; on the eastern side was the Sturts Stony Desert; Very like a moonscape and flat.

At last we came to Coober Pedy country. First we saw lots of strange looking white pointy "ant hills" which were miners' mullock heaps. It looked like an alien landscape. Then we arrived in the little township of Coober Pedy; what a strange looking place. I felt totally disoriented riding down the main street….nothing looked like a normal town. Lots of funny shack-like little places, and signs hanging on every angle, and everything had a white dusty colour to it. No trees and not a blade of grass anywhere.

We booked into a Big 4 Caravan Park, took one look at the powered camping sites on pale dirt and nothing shady, and decided to book a budget cabin for 3 nights, at $45 a night with our Big4 discount. Air conditioning was important for our comfort, as it was 42 degrees and we were just about melting off our bikes. Too dusty for a tent! The Mighty Intrepids turned into Wimps!

Coober Pedy: "White Man's Burrow": 30 Oct to 2 Nov 2012

Coober Pedy's name is derived from the Aboriginal kupa piti, which means "uninitiated, therefore, white-man's burrow". Full blood Aborigines won't go underground.

We decided to get a big picture of the strange little opal town by going on a bus tour run by our caravan park, so at 8am on our first day we were being driven around by Rudi, a cute little old guy of 77 years, and he was very informative, as well as entertaining with his dry sense of humour. He had been an opal miner for years and has a plot reserved in the local cemetery next to his beloved late wife, where he cheerfully told us he was happy to be buried there. (When he is dead!)

Rudi took us to several underground dugout places, some where people are living inside; in fact, the reason why Coober Pedy looks so strange is that a lot of the dwellings are underground to keep people cool, and all you can see of these places is a bit of a shack-like frontage outside.

The temperature underground is 24 degrees all year round, and the sandstone walls and roofs are stunning to look at inside. It's just outside that looks like a dump.

The most impressive underground place we went into was a grand Serbian Orthodox church. It looked like a small cathedral inside; a work of art in its design.

An underground museum was our next visit, and Rudi took us through old mine workings. Unlike any other underground mines I've been in, the rock here is soft clay-sandstone and there are no rock bolts or timbers to hold the surrounds steady. The sandstone is soft and so the miners' lungs are not attacked by abrasive rock dirt, as in most other mines. There are beautiful patterns in the sandstone carved out underground. Rudi also took us to see the driest golf course, nothing green anywhere. Then to the mullock heaps on the outskirts of town, where we looked through a fence and saw the dangerous holes in the ground everywhere. Danger Do Not Enter signs on the fences here.

We even had a go at noodling on the free noodling mounds on the edge of town. I scrabbled around in the bulldozed rubble mounds, got covered in fine pale dirt and found a tiny bit of gypsum. No opal. You'd have to be desperate to find opal this way. I reckon going to the shops will be easier!

After our tour with Rudi, we went exploring many of the local opal shops. It feels strange walking up a dusty main street veering off at crazy angles to go into shack-like little buildings advertising Opals. Every opal shop we entered was dark, but we'd set off a door alarm, and a light would flick on, followed by the proprietor appearing from the gloom out the back. Some shops had owners who tell you their prices but "for you, a special price!" And the prices tumbled; say from $1,000 down to $300! Hmmm….no thanks! Other shops had more believable displays of the most beautiful opals I've ever seen, either set in gold or silver, or as single stones. Also a lot of gorgeous fossil sea shells and belemnites which are fossil squid creatures.

Most of the opals were way beyond our budget, but hey, it costs nothing to look at them! We saw opals ranging from crystals with dashes of colour, as well as very expensive "black" opal, full of fire and colours, through to blues, greens and whites. There was also a lot of "boulder opal" from Winton Queensland. Dave and I were pleased that we had bought some boulder opal in Winton at way cheaper prices than were being asked in Coober Pedy…we now realise we got real bargain prices in Winton…it pays to shop local.

Did we get out of Coober Pedy without buying opal? Well, that was our intention, but the spell of opal finally got to us, and Dave bought himself a little opalised fossil sea shell , and I have a lovely white solid opal pendant with pretty colours flashing, set in sterling silver. Of course I had bargained the price down….I like to haggle…does this make me a haggler or a hag? Some of the shops were charging silly prices but we were happy with our 2 purchases, as the shop was being realistic, and the opals look good. I can't understand why anybody would buy doublet or triplet opals, as these are just thin slivers glued onto other stuff, and you can buy solid good opal if you look around for a reasonable price, also solid opal is more durable.

This morning we went for a big walk around the dusty town, as the weather was nice and cool today. There's a lookout with "The Big Winch" on top of it….such a tacky area, with interesting views of Coober Pedy shanty-town surroundings. I walked into a dark big shed up on top of this lookout, and nearly jumped out of my skin when a little old Asian man who gave me the instant heebie jeebies jumped up from a chair in the gloom and told me in a funny accent to look at his opals. There was a poster on the wall behind him showing different sex positions, incongruously surrounded by photos of this weird little man's grandchildren? Yuk! Dave came into the shed then, I breathed a sigh of relief not to be alone here, and we went into a depressing little room where the lights got flicked on. Cheapest opal jewellery was there for us to Buy! Buy! We escaped politely, walking out normally before we got moving faster when it felt safe to do so! Hope the creepy little man didn't hear our giggles.

So now we are ready to move on from interesting unique Coober Pedy. We learned that about 2,500 people live here, some desert Aborigines passing through, and there is a large percentage of unemployed white people, along with retired European miners who have never lost the opal glint in their eyes.

Tomorrow is another adventure, riding south to Woomera and to Roxby Downs for a few days.