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G'day from Coober Pedy. We arrived late yesterday with full intentions of only staying one night but this place is AMAZING, so we booked one more night.
Spent today exploring this incredible place. Visited Tom's Opal Mine, where we were allowed to wander around down in the tunnels and see what an opal mine looked like from the underneath. The miners use an ultraviolet light to find the opals - they shine up as bright white under the uv light. Tried to talk Smiley into buying me an opal, but after what had been spent on getting The Beast back on the road, thought I'd better not push my luck. Instead we tried our hand at 'noodling' through the piles of stuff dug out from the mines in the hope of getting a big colorful opal, no luck there I'm sorry to report.
Headed into town to have a look at Faye's Historic Underground House which was built by three ladies in the 1960's using just picks, shovels, buckets and wheelbarrows (u go girls!). Our guide said that 80% of Coober Pedy's population live underground, as the temperature in these homes always stays between 21-25 degrees. Underground homes can also be extended at any time by just cutting out more space on the rock. I asked Smiley if we could have an underground home so I could perhaps build a bigger walk-in robe and add to my shoe collection - again, he wasn't receptive to my idea.
We also went to visit the underground Serbian Orthodox Church which was absolutely beautiful, even the religious figures were carved in the rock wall.
The highlight for the day was the drive out to The Breakaways via the Dog Fence (part of the 5600kms long fence running from Qld to WA). We cooked up a BBQ tea at The Breakaways Lookout and watched the colors change as the sun set on this incredible day.
Tomorrow we hit the NT!
We are also happy to report that The Beast is running well....phew!
- comments
Pooky Awesome Mavis ...now your doing it!!!! Cheers!!!!
Livvy Gosh smiley is being a party pooper... no shoes space, no opals... Hows the chocolate diet... did it happen?