Coober Pedy
A town in the middle of nowhere – in the desert between Port Augusta and Alice Springs. Nothing here. Except of opal, lots of opal. Which is apparently the reason that Coober Pedy („The opal capital of the world“) exists. As in every village you pass up on the way to Alice, there is not much here. One of them uglier than the other, but you have to stay somewhere overnight and therefore no choice at all. Well, they have internet („only“ 8$/p.h.) and so I can update you immediately...
Coober Pedy is, compared to other stops we had so far, nice. Not beautiful, but ok, and it has two supermarkets! It also has one pub, around 20 night clubs (nearly one for every nationality, as there live people from 50 different countries in Coober), a bowling club and, of course, a golf course like every village in Australia seems to have one. So, the 3500 people who live here, can do something in their spare time. I can only say one thing: „Do mechast jo ned doad am Zaun ummihänga!“ But, as usual, I found something for you, that shows a certain sense of humor: Which f... grass?!? ;-)
We decided, to stay here for two nights and go on a desert tour. The hostel we stayed in is, as most of the things in Coober, underground. Which means that the bedrooms find their place in a „dugout“ - an old opal mine six meters under the surface. That is absoluteley cool – and a bit freaky when you go down there the first time... ;-)
The tour took us trough the opal mining fields (I'm not sure if I have ever seen something more ugly), to the Brakeaways, the Moon Plane, the Dog Fence (the worlds longest fence – over 5000 kilometers long) and so on.
As part of the tour, we were allowed to go „noodeling“ for a while in an old opal mine. „Noodeling“ means, you go trough the stones and sand that has bees dugged out of the mine and hope to find some left opal in it. Of course, you don't find anything, but it was fun anyway. Opal fever...
Our next stop major stop will be Uluru on Monday for two days! That will be impressive – Uluru at sunset and/or at sunrise. We really look forward to it! :-)
Coober Pedy is, compared to other stops we had so far, nice. Not beautiful, but ok, and it has two supermarkets! It also has one pub, around 20 night clubs (nearly one for every nationality, as there live people from 50 different countries in Coober), a bowling club and, of course, a golf course like every village in Australia seems to have one. So, the 3500 people who live here, can do something in their spare time. I can only say one thing: „Do mechast jo ned doad am Zaun ummihänga!“ But, as usual, I found something for you, that shows a certain sense of humor: Which f... grass?!? ;-)
We decided, to stay here for two nights and go on a desert tour. The hostel we stayed in is, as most of the things in Coober, underground. Which means that the bedrooms find their place in a „dugout“ - an old opal mine six meters under the surface. That is absoluteley cool – and a bit freaky when you go down there the first time... ;-)
The tour took us trough the opal mining fields (I'm not sure if I have ever seen something more ugly), to the Brakeaways, the Moon Plane, the Dog Fence (the worlds longest fence – over 5000 kilometers long) and so on.
As part of the tour, we were allowed to go „noodeling“ for a while in an old opal mine. „Noodeling“ means, you go trough the stones and sand that has bees dugged out of the mine and hope to find some left opal in it. Of course, you don't find anything, but it was fun anyway. Opal fever...
Our next stop major stop will be Uluru on Monday for two days! That will be impressive – Uluru at sunset and/or at sunrise. We really look forward to it! :-)
shue - 16. Jul, 13:12
- 0 Trackbacks
