Day 9 Coober Pedy

Today was a sleep-in morning but unfortunately we were woken up at 6am with the mass exit of caravans hitting the road early. We still had a slow and lazy morning before we started our day of sightseeing. First stop was the Visitor Information Centre to obtain a pass for the Breakaways. We were then driving to our first stop and due to lack of street signs we got very lost but there was so much interesting stuff to look at we kept driving. Rog was very excited looking at everything and next thing we heard sirens and he got pulled over by the police. We had no idea what he had done wrong and Bronte was so cranky with him. The lovely policewoman came over and said that Rog was all over the road so she just wanted to check he wasn’t drunk. She did the breathalyser and realised that we were just lost tourists! We had a lovely chat to the policeman and they too laughed that there are no street signs. We then stopped to look at a vacant block of land which was for sale and across the road they were building an underground house so we went and had a look. We then went to Boot Hill Cemetery to look at a tombstone made out of an 18 gallon beer keg which said ‘Have a drink on me’. Then we continued to the Serbian Church which is the largest church in Coober Pedy and it was so spectacular with the curved ceilings and stained glass windows. We then drove to the Golf Course which is listed in the top 10 most unusual courses. It’s an 18 hole grass-less course. Next stop was Faye’s Underground House and Mine Tour. What an entrepreneur Faye was and what a very interesting life she had. Her underground house she built was amazing to see and it even has an indoor swimming pool. We then did a tour through her underground opal mine. We got to see some opals and gypsum. It was such a great insight into opal mining and life in Coober Pedy.

For those of you that don’t know majority of people live underground in ‘dugouts’ due to the weather. It’s too hot in summer and gets cold overnight in winter so by living in dugouts the temp stays at a consistent 19-25 degrees.

We then tried our luck at noodling for opals and instead got covered in dirt. The kids had fun finding gypsum but unfortunately no opals. We then drove to Umoona’ Opal Mine & Museum for a look around the museum. There was lots of info on opal mining, fossils, opals etc.. We then drove back to the caravan park for lunch and a quick rest. Next we got our bikes and rode along the bike path to the BMX track and skate park. The kids had a ball riding and playing at the park. We then rode back to the caravan park. We had our photo with the Coober Pedy road sign then drove out to the Breakaways Conservation Park (Kanku) which is approx. 140 sq kms of beautiful escarpments, hills and plains. The Breakaways are low hills that have broken away from the start of the Stuart Range. We drove sound to the lookouts and saw ‘salt & pepper’. Lots of movies have been filmed out here too. We continued to the dog fence which is a 2m high wire barrier which stretches over 5,300km across 3 states to protect the sheep in the south from the dingo. We then drove back to the lookout to watch the sunset over the Breakaways and it was beautiful. We all enjoyed our pizza at John’s last night so we went back for dinner again. We must have been hungry this time as we got 2 pizzas and nearly ate them both.