Day 126 - Wednesday 3 May - Coober Pedy underground

Day 126

Wednesday

3 May 2017 

Coober Pedy –Turns out the name is Aboriginal “Kupa piti” meaning “White man in a hole” and Umoona is the name for the Mulga tree and means “Long Life”

We woke to a clear and crisp morning. There was much activity around us with the campers packing up and moving on. I wasn’t interested in reading and instead laid happily in bed until Paul was ready to get up.

We had breakfast and showers before Paul took the cassette loo to the dump point in town. In the meantime I went to check on the internet hoping I would be able to load up the happenings of the past few days, but no luck, it wasn’t working. I tried every trick I knew with the modem, but nothing brought it to life, bugger.

I returned to the van and Paul was back soon after. We set out our plan for the day, gathered our things and made our way to the Serbian Orthodox Church. This is apparently world-renowned and I was interested to check it out. We followed the “roads” to St Elijah, parked, were taken aback by the request $5 each and instead scrounged around for $1.60.

We entered the church and began our descent down the hall and underground, into the main chamber. Paul lit a candle while we took in the space. We both weren’t overwhelmed by the structure and were glad we didn’t put anything extra in the donation box.

We walked the stairs back to the surface, out the door and into the car, next stop Faye’s Underground Historic Home. Faye Nayler and two friends dug out the home in the 1960’s using just a pick and shovel. The dwelling used to be home to the mail truck, which then became her kitchen. It was an incredible home of multiple levels and all the rooms you would expect; kitchen, dining, bedrooms with walk ins, lounge, bar, cellar and a swimming pool! The pool wasn’t underground but was covered by a patio style enclosure, it was still dug out by hand however.  Two – thirds of the 1600 people living in Coober Pedy live underground today. The local aboriginal population do not, as they believe there are bad spirits to be encountered.

The current owners of the home showed us through the structure, pointing out different pieces of interest. I could tell they were both still amazed at the feat of the three ladies. We were free to roam around after the short tour and then we were off to our next destination.

Across the road from Faye’s is the tourist noodling area, so we set off with our tent pegs and hammer to give it a go. I found a spot to start digging into the mullock. The stone was soft and crumbly and was easy to pick away. Unfortunately it didn’t result in the finding of opal, but it was still fun to give it a go.

We drove on to the Umoona Opal mine and museum in the main street, parked and entered the museum. We wandered around the artefacts and displays reading about the opal mining and the opalised fossil, including Eric the Plesiosaur now housed at the National Museum in Sydney. As we had missed the tour we decided we would come back for the 2pm timeslot. I then browsed the jewellery, finding Pandora style charms and thought this would be a better option than another necklace, so I chose one I liked and we were on our way.

We walked along the main street. Next door to Umoona is the Opal Cave, Faye’s original opal mine and store. At the front of the complex was a beat up structure that looked like a space ship from Star Wars. As it turned out it was a movie prop from the movie Pitch Black starring Vin Diesel. We checked out the views from the hill covering the store and old mine then entered the store for a quick browse.  

We continued our walk up the street. I took photos of the interesting machines and sculptures that graced the front of various stores before we returned to the car and did a drive past the local Coober Pedy Area School, surprisingly this isn’t below the ground. The land is also home to the local library, pool and radio station. We were both glad we didn’t call this our work place.

Before returning to the van for lunch, we stopped at the Tourist info centre and picked up a permit to drive out to The Breakaways for $10, something we planned to do later in the day. On return to the van, we had our lunch and took a short rest. I checked on the internet again, but still no luck. Grrr.  

At 1.30pm we drove back to town parked at Umoona but walked to one of the opal dealers we had been to yesterday where we picked up some pieces before doing a quick shop and returning just in time for the 2pm tour of the Umoona opal mine.

We watched an interesting documentary to begin with titled “The Story of Opal” and then we were walked through the old mine and shown how a miner would have lived in the mine. We also walked through part of an underground home before venturing 15m below ground into the former mine.  There were plenty of dark tunnels, blasting holes and a seam of opal in the wall. Where was my pick when I needed it?

With the tour complete we climbed the steep alley back to the shop and made our way to the car once again.

By now it was 3.30pm and the sun was beginning her slow descent. We drove out the road towards Oodnadatta until we reached the dog fence, a 5300km long wire and post fence 2m tall, designed to keep the dingo from the sheep. It stretches across NSW and QLD and for the most part is quite successful.

We turned onto The Breakaways road, following the fence for sometime. This road also took us through Moon Plain. This area of land is red, rocky and has the same mineral content as the surface of Mars and to look at it you could almost imagine you were on the red planet. Movies such as Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, Priscilla and Ground Zero have been filmed here.

We stopped to take photos at regular intervals, particularly as The Breakaways formations came into view. They are essentially colourful low hills that have broken away from the Stuart Range. There were two lookouts that we stopped at, the second sat us up looking over the valley below, from here you could imagine the inland sea that filled this land and gave it its opals.

After taking in the striking view, we wound our way back to the Stuart Highway and returned to the campground. We passed many operating mines along this route. They are like ants, leaving behind little pyramid shapes of rock rubble. Signs tell you to watch where you walk in case you fall down a mineshaft.

When we returned Paul hitched the car and I sorted my photos. The sun was well and truly setting, leaving a brilliant yellow glow in the sky.

We organised our dinner and ate before settling down for the night and mentally preparing for the day of moving on. We were crunching numbers for destinations north along with time of travel. We will cross into the NT tomorrow our fourth state so hard to believe. I can’t wait to explore something new.