Day 21: Coober Pedy

Coober Pedy certainly is an eye opener. It's hard to believe that places like the Grampians and Coober Pedy both exist in the same country, but they are two extremes that highlight the diversity of this great country of ours.
We started the day a little slowly again as we didn't need to rush, our tour of Coober Pedy we had booked didn't leave until 1.30pm so we had plenty of time.
Darren desperately wanted to get the car washed so once organised we went into Coober Pedy's bustling main street to the car wash. Whilst Darren initiated himself with the washing facilities, the kids and I walked the main street to catch up on some errands. We passed the local Aborigines that appear to assume the same meeting spot each day. A number of the locals greeted us as they passed, so the place is friendly enough.
Once errands and car wash were complete we played tourist by visiting an opal shop and driving through the town to fully gauge what it is like. Definitely a place you need to visit, but you would have to be the right sort of person to live here. There are only 2 places in the whole town that have grass, the footy oval and the school. The rest of the town is dust and rock.
After surveying the town a little we let the kids play on the playground before heading back to the van to have lunch and prepare for our booked tour.
The tour was very informative. Our tour guide was the one that told us about the grass, he also informed us that the playground the kids had played on that morning sits where the soccer fields used to be. Since the town no longer has a team a playground was built instead, with a government grant to pay for it.
Our tour took us to Coober Pedy's golf course where you have to carry your own little patch of artificial grass around with you. The holes are surrounded by black grass which is basically sand mixed with oil to stop it from blowing away.
We learnt a lot about Coober Pedy's opal mining and got to see some existing mine sites. We were only allowed to look at existing sites from the bus as it is illegal to trespass onto other people's sites.
A common earner in the area is noodling. This the process of going through the mullock heaps to find any missed opal.
We also learnt the different types of opal and the colours that are most valuable.
One of the stops of our tour was to an old mine that also had an underground display home connected, on top of that was an opal shop which was all still underground. My wonderful husband and children bought me a new Pierre Cardin watch with an opal face as an early birthday present, however I probably won't wear it until I get home so it won't be such an early present by then.
The tour also included an underground church and the cemetery.
We all thoroughly enjoyed the tour and it was well worth it to learn so much about the culture and way of life of the community from a local.
Tomorrow we are starting our journey towards Yulara (Uluru), Darren has aspirations of making it all the way there but we will see how we go. He says I may even have to drive, so he must be desperate to make it all the way there!