Day 3 Coober Pedy

Another early start (4.30am) so that we could make good time on the long drive to Coober Pedy, an Opal mining town in the middle of nowhere. On the way we stopped at Lake Hart, a dried up salt lake, where we spent a lot of time and a lot of camera memory space taking arty photos of eachother and the scenery. Quite an eery experience standing in the middle of a salt lake looking way into the distance, but good fun and good photos. Also saw some amazing wildlife on the way, including lots of Wedge-Tailed Eagles (circling and feasting on road-kill), Snakes, Camels and more 'Roos.

Coober Pedy was established over one hundred years ago when miners were in search of Opals. Consequently the whole town is devoted to Opal mining. We were lucky enough to experience the town tour (with a very moody tour guide who obviously wasn't too happy about spending the rest of her days showing tourists around a deserted town), a cave tour, a church in a cave, the cave museum, a demonstration of opal refining, the opal shop (Z and D managed to resist buying any jewelry although lots of other people on our tour bought some) and we even did some noodling (digging) for opals in a dirt field. Oh yes, a very odd afternoon! Our accommodation was even built into the side of a rock in some caves. The highlight though was definitely the excellent Pizza restaurant and a long night spent playing ridiculous drinking games with some of our group in the local pub… which was in a cave!! Very good night, but knew we'd regret it given our early start on Day 4…