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  Coober Pedy, Australia
Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Coober Pedy is a mining town - opal being the money behind it and the unwavering heat being the reason for most of the town being built underground. Reaching up to 52 degrees in February (glad we chose that month to go then!), the heat really does hold you back, although it was a mere 42 degrees on the day we explored, so we've nothing to complain about.....We checked into our hostel at 5am having caught the overnight bus from Adelaide, and went 6m down to our beds in the lovely cool dorms and stayed right there until about 10am. We went for a wander above ground, and managed about half an hour in the heat and the annoying flies which attempt over and over to drink form your eyes, ears, lips, sweat etc etc....nice.
We joined a tour for the afternoon - the benefits being the air conditioned bus that took us around this quite large town filled with opal mines and their miners undrground houses. It took us 4 hours of driving and exploring to get everything in - including a few mines, learning how to find opal (if I get short of money...), visiting Crocodile Harry's underground house, the longest fence in the world (stretching from here to the gold coast - trust me that is a VERY lond way) built to keep the dingos out of sheep country, the breathtaking breakaway's - huge rock formations stretching accross the desert and listening to stories of the town, mainly about how many people are injured or killed falling down the mine shafts...There are over 250,000 in the area, so you have to watch where you're going! It was great hearing the stories of fortunes made aand lost, although also great to return to the underground hostel and seek shelter from the heat! We grabbed an enourmous Pizza from the place next door and hit the sack pretty early for our early bus to The Red Centre.

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