Hi all

So, Coober Pedy. The place where dreams and fortunes are made. The opal mining capital of the world. Place of underground Hobbit homes and the scene of a whole host of films and television series.

Now Coober Pedy is in the middle of the desert proper. Red sand and outback for miles around. Rather predictably then, when we arrived it was bowing a gale. And as a result there was a major sand storm going on. Great. But on the plus side we stayed in an underground campsite which was way cool. It’s in a hill that’s been dug out and loads of cabins and tent pitches laid out inside. We pitched up, and headed into town for some dinner and you can imagine our surprise when a thunderstorm started. It appears we can’t go anywhere in Australia where it’s warm and dry. Even the middle of the f***in desert. They got 24mm of rain here last year according to the woman who runs the site. I think we got that that night. It hammered down. Maybe we could get work as rain makers.

The next day, we awoke and were amazed, though not entirely surprised, to find it was still raining and blowing an absolute gale of almost hurricane proportions. Hmmmmm. We decided not to stay as most of what we wanted to see and do was outside. The guys who ran the campsite were in absolute awe of the storm and the wind and phrases like ‘Haven’t seen anything like it’ abounded. I’m convinced that pretty soon we won’t be allowed to go anywhere in Australia. Towns and cities simply won’t let us in. We’re some kind of voodoo jinx. We’ll just spend the rest of our time here getting moved on from town to town like a couple of outcast lepers.

So the plan was to now to head on to Alice Springs and Uluru and do Coober Pedy on the way back down to Adelaide. No sweat. We went for a quick coffee in town before we left and were more than a little chuffed to find it doubled as a didgeridoo shop. They had hundreds of them. All proper ones made by local artists, and some of them weren’t even for sale. They were just there as art. And as works of art they were quite simply breathtaking. And as didgeridoos too. Boom boom. The guy running the place was originally from Malta and is a retired opal miner. Everybody here is I reckon. An ex-opal miner that is, not from Malta. Anyway, he couldn’t talk any quieter than a shout which we found quite funny for the first five minutes, then really annoying thereafter. A quiet cup of coffee wasn’t really on the cards. As I say, the didgeridoos were beautiful and as a result expensive. We didn’t know how much a decent one goes for, but this guy was telling us $700 was normal price. Then he said the magic words. But we can do you a special price. Flashbacks of Asia abounded. One phonecall later and suddenly the price went down to $550. And he had to ‘beg the artist to drop the price that much’. Hmmmmm. Then he finished on a pearler. This price is only any good for today. Although we’d be back next week, he wouldn’t be there and his son wouldn’t be able to get us the same discount. If we didn’t buy today we’d had it. Laugh? I nearly bought a didgeridoo. Not. We finished our coffees and left, laughing at the fact he wasn’t nearly as good as the average fruit seller in Vietnam. Nice try fella but we’re seasoned hagglers don’t you know :o)

Ah well, back in the car and off we headed to the Northern Territory and the delights of Alice Springs and Ularu. And for the first time in what felt like ages, I was genuinely excited about going somewhere. Sweet.

Laters all

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx