Hi cover picture is of Chris having an imaginary tee off on the Coober Pedy golf course. It is actually 18 holes and the (greens) brown earth have oil put on them to stop the high winds blowing the sand away. There are signs that say Keep off the Grass!!!!!!!!
We went on our tour this morning which is definitely the way to go in places like this as you learn so much more about the town the way it operates and survives in the conditions. Our tour guide was an 80 year old Ex opal miner from Austria a real hard case. 50% of people live underground where the temperature stays at 24deg all year round. No heating or cooling required. The temp here can exceed 50 deg in summer.
We visited an underground church,house,opal mine,and hotel today complete with gaming room very interesting.
There are about 2000 holes around 28metres deep by a metre wide that have no requirement to be covered over or filled in,the landscape is like another world with cone shaped mounds of tailings everywhere thousands of them. A few people fall fown them and die but the last one was about 12 years ago, today we saw pictures stage by stage of rescues of people.
Chris went noodling!!! Which us what they call fossicking in the tailing piles and has a couple of very small opals.
Tomorrow we shall begin the trip to Ayers Rock which is about 750 kms away we are unsure whether we will do it in 2 days or 3. They have had rain there which only 1% of tourists ever get to see pouring down the rock but I guess we have missed that!!!! The forecast is fine with around 24 when we are there. Coober Pedy has been a real eye opener for us but really enjoyable.