Saturday, May 12, 2012

Coober Pedy

Coober Pedy - A dusty town

We had to snap this one

Coober Pedy 
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A day out today in Coober Pedy. We started at the feeding of the orphan kangaroos which was great fun for the girls (see video) and saw some aboriginal artwork at the gallery.
It was mothers day today and we sat for lunch in the underground hotel and enjoyed brunch. 
Coober Pedy was a dusty hole of a place with no real comforts to speak of but a tone of character, a definate must see if travelling Australia... We stayed at the Riba's underground caravan and camping park which included a Mine tour in the evening it was very cool. We did some water divining and learnt about staking our own claim in the opal business. girls were terribly bored after 10 mins but it was their bed time and both were sleepy. This caravan park also caters for campers who want to camp underground in the hillside dugout tunnels.. 
Learning about how to blow the earth away with high explosives
Water divining is key to finding opal in the ground


The chicken man - strange travellers starting to appear

Coober Pedy from the Big winch Lookout area

Coober Pedy landscape


The Big Winch




We desperately wanted to find some opal and for people keen to try their luck there is a noodling area near the main street of town. It looks like a big pile of diggings from opal mines that you can noodle through and if your lucky and look hard you can find opal... we were lucky and found a few bits to bring home. 
We bought the girls some opal earrings to remember their trip to Coober Pedy.
This is our final night at Coober Pedy tonight and since it was mothers day.. no cooking for mum so we bought one of their much talked about pizzas . Heading off in the morning leaving all the street drunk aboriginals behind. The only downfall to this town is the local aboriginals scattered through the streets drunk and sitting in the gutters... not a good site for tourists.


Noodling & The Breakaways
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The Breakaway
The dog fence

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