Hi all

So next morning up we got and after passing the out of breath threesome as they slid sweatily from their tent, and we’d greeted them with a hearty ‘Morning, how you feeling?’ (pretty good by the look of them) we jumped into Priscilla and headed out for a look at all the underground buildings. These places are carved out of the rock (have I explained this already?) in an effort to keep them cool.

First up was the Orthodox Serbian Catholic church which was absolutely sumptuous inside. You just let yourself in, turn the lights on, look round and then reverse. The stained glass windows were really beautiful and bathed the whole place in a rainbow like glow. Together with the effigies and the displays of scenes from the bible it all made for a really gorgeous introduction to underground living. I get this weird feeling, electric but serene, when I’m in an empty place of worship, like there are traces of emotions hanging in the air. Joy, togetherness, love, fear and humility. But most of all just a kind of energy waiting to be used up. Or perhaps left over. Like a place that’s busy even when there’s no-one there. This last feeling occurs whenever I find myself alone in a place where there are usually a lot of people, but never more than when I’m in a church or whatever, and I love it. I think it’s due to the concentrated nature of the emotions expended. It’s uplifting and has caused goose pimples on more than a few occasions, as well as on slightly rarer occasions the urge to burst into tears.

Anyhoo, next up was the Christian church which wasn’t quite so impressive but an enjoyable fifteen minute interlude. It was much more serious (if that’s the right word) but didn’t really make the same impression as the previous one. It wasn’t out of the ordinary but was nice enough in itself.

And on to the underground hotel and watering hole something which we were both really looking forward to exploring. Now the owner promotes this place as the world’s only underground bar, a point that is hotly disputed by Barbara from Riba’s. Personally I couldn’t care less one way or the other. I found the place strangely depressing. Maybe it was the room full of dour, depressed looking people feeding the Poker machines in resolute silence, maybe it was the shabby furniture and decor or the dilapidated pool table. Whatever, the bar man was the only positive thing in the place. Funny, chatty, friendly and last but not least, he let us have a few free tracks on the jukebox. But when a few local boys (and I use that term deliberately - fifteen if they were a day) arrived and started acting like, well, fifteen year old boys, we were ready to leave. On the hotel side it was equally un-special (don’t think that word will be in your dictionary) in fact it was startlingly bland for something which held so much promise, and all in all we left feeling a little bit grubby. Like we needed a good wash. Nothing new there then...

So where to next on our tour of the underground world that goes into making Coober Pedy what it is, I hear you ask. Well, it was on to a preserved opal mine which traces the world of opal mining from it’s humble beginnings to its humble present. And it was seriously boring. By now I’d had my fill of mines and of looking at holes in the ground, but the mine is attached to an underground house that was inhabited until fairly recently. It was brilliant. It was just like a normal house, only carved out of the ground. Ok, I know I’m not exactly selling this, but it was as much like a Hobbit house as I’m ever likely to come across. Albeit with very modern furnishings and white goods. In fact, the guy who owns it still finds the odd bit of opal in the walls. Usually just when he needs it. Like when the washing machine broke down or they had some unexpected hospital bills. I mentioned already that you can’t mine inside the town limits any more. But you are allowed to extend your house. And if you happen to come across any opals while you’re doing it then hey, what’s a guy supposed to do? As a result, this house was enormous. I guess cavernous would be a better word. Either way I want to live in it. Now.

By now we’d had enough of enclosed spaces (regardless of how spacious they actually are) and decided to head out to watch the sunset from a place called the Breakaways, which essentially offers spectacular views of the desert. We turned down the dirt track which serves as a road and after a few kilometres I noticed something slightly alarming. Priscilla’s temperature gauge was off the scale. The needle was bending it was so far past red. We came to a halt and opened the engine. No steam came out, just a heatwave that could have stripped the skin from a rhino. Me and Mand stood looking at each other. The light was starting to fade and there was no way either of us fancied a 10km hike back through the searing heat with virtually no water only to have night fall on us and disappear down a hole in the ground. Hmmmm. So we waited. And waited. And waited. For the engine to cool enough that we could open the radiator cap and pour in the half litre of coolant that we had and our last litre of water. To say it was hot is like saying Duncan Goodhew is slightly thinning. Mand amused herself by wandering around aimlessly kicking at stones in the hope that they might turn out to be opal. We’ve heard enough of these stories now that we half believed it might happen. I mean million to one coincidences happen all the time out here :o) After about an hour and a half, with the light a fair way to gone (we were bathed in the most glorious golden red for most of our enforced rest) I was finally able to undo the radiator cap and pour in the much needed elixir to restore Priscilla to full health. We drove back to town to pick up some food for dinner and some more coolant just in case, and much to our relief Priscilla seemed fine. Until we stopped. Then the needle shot up to the red again. Bint. We gingerly drove back to the campsite and the needle dropped back to normal. Until we stopped again. Then it nearly flew off in a Wacky Races kind of way as it raced up to the red again. Worrying to say the least. Deciding that it might somehow fix itself over night we settled in for dinner and bed.

Next morning and Mand had me up at the crack of dawn. This is because before we headed out of Coober Pedy and back down to Port Augusta, we were off to noodle through the molluck. This means heading out to one of the public noodling sites in town. These were made before it became illegal to mine inside town limits, and are also the remains of one of the few large scale attempts at opal mining in the area. Essentially, they bulldozed up large strips of the land and then the people following after picked the opal out. Not the most efficient method, and as a result there are now huge piles of earth (or more precisely sand and rock) which we are one hundred per cent assured contain opal. Sweet. So we borrowed a sieve and a water sprayer each from Rick and with our shovel we’d bought, but thankfully never used, back in Perth we were off to make our fortune. With Priscilla now overflowing with coolant and water we headed off.

By the time we got there it was already about four hundred degrees in the shade but this didn’t deter Mand one little bit. She was out of the car before it stopped and hopping up and down berating me for taking more than a 0.2 seconds to turn off the engine and join her. As soon as I’d locked the car she was off like greased lightning, using her well honed ESP powers to take us to a likely spot. Now noodling goes like this. You dig up a load of dust and sand and rock, throw it in the sieve, shake it and throw out all the larger rocks. Then look for a likely piece, spray it with water to get rid of the dirt (when opal fever strikes it’s more usual to start licking the dirt off), and hopefully reveal glittering shiny opal underneath. After Mand’s first frantic attempt I realised the secret is not to stand downwind of someone when they’re shaking half a ton of dust all over the place. Sweating and dusty, but nonetheless enjoying ourselves immensely we spent a good three quarters of an hour trying to find enough opal to let us retire. Meanwhile, a bunch of tourists on a bus tour arrived and began noodling about a hundred metres away. This brought out the very worst in Mand as her competitive streak kicked in. I swear to God she must’ve moved four tonnes of earth in the next fifteen minutes but then something really special happened. She found opal. Proper opal. I s*** you not. This prompted some serious whooping and screams of ‘We’re rich’ and ‘Let’s all have a disco’ as we deliriously jigged in the dust, along with some serious catcalling in the direction of the bored looking tourists. Not only that, but a couple of minutes later she found another bit. We were in raptures. But time was kicking on and with a last jeer at the departing tourist bus we decided enough was enough and that we really should be getting on the road. I say we, but I had to drag Mand once more kicking and screaming and dreaming of fortunes to be made if we just hung around for a few more hours, back across the molluck and back into Priscilla.

Back at the campsite we showed Rick our heroic haul. He looked, looked again and said something along the lines of ‘Yeah, that’s opal. It’s fossilised opal, meaning its attached to a bone in a really thin layer. Whatever happens don’t try polishing it or it’ll rub off’. Seeing our crestfallen expressions he quickly changed to more upbeat approach and told us that not everyone even finds that out there and we’d done really well. He did everything but pat us on the heads and tell us that we were really really special. Feeling patronised, but also still immensely chuffed with ourselves we thanked him, gave him back his equipment and jumped in Priscilla. Priscilla for her part was still playing up. The whole time we were driving it was fine, but once again when we stopped the needle went off the scale. But deciding that it’d be easier/cheaper to get her looked at in Port Augusta than it would be in Coober Pedy we’d crack on anyway. Besides, we weren’t going to stop on the way anyway. So it was with a huge cheer and a wave to Rick that we disappeared in a cloud of dust and headed back out across the outback down to Port Augusta. Coober Pedy f***in rocks and if we ever come back to Australia again we are going to make every effort to come here again. We love it.

Just a couple more points to remember though. Coober Pedy didn’t get television until 1985. Seriously. The water here is really expensive. Most campsites and hotels charge you for it. And the best time to shop at the main grocery store in town is Wednesday because they get their new stock in on Tuesday evening. Just in case you ever go there you understand.

Laters all

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