Renee & Mum had a lovely sleep-in this morning J. Eventually, we made our way into Coober Pedy town and had a coffee/juice at the Underground Restaurant - George the Greek owner was very friendly and told us all about the history of the restaurant.

We then joined the Stuart Range Caravan Park tour bus with 8 grey nomad couples for an afternoon of discovery of Coober Pedy. We checked out the main town and a variety of underground dwellings from the road. First stop was the well-known Coober Pedy Golf Course with its grassless fairways and slag/oil greens. It's a par 72, and about 6km long. Players take along a patch of synthetic grass which is used to hit each shot off the fairways!

We drove up the highway and it was amazing to see the thousands of mounds of 'mullock' left and right with the associated shafts adjacent. License holders stake out a 50m x 50m lot and just get the equipment in, make a shaft and start digging and hope that they might find some opal!

Next stop was The Breakaways which is a cluster of colourful low hills that have broken away from the Stuart Range. The Panorama Hill features in Mad Max 3 as BarterTown so the kids are looking forward to watching that (we bought the trilogy in Silverton!).

The dog fence (not the rabbit proof fence) was next - it stretches for over 5,300km across SA, NSW, QLD to keep the dingoes north and protect the sheep in the south. The desert-like moonscape along the fence and surrounds is nicknamed the 'moon plain' -today it was greener than usual due to 2mls of rain 6 weeks ago, but it was still very barren.

Then the Umoona Opal Mine and Museum, which included a great 20min documentary on opal mining, a tour of an original opal mine and underground house which was very interesting and not as claustrophobic as I thought it might be!

Finally a visit to the Serbian Orthodox Church which was very beautiful and celebrating its 20th Anniversary this weekend, so locals are getting ready for their Bishop's arrival for a special ceremony.

Back to Stuart Range Caravan Park to enjoy really fantastic amenities!