Day 6 and 7

DAY 6

The day started with a bit of a sleep-in, and bacon and egg sandwiches for breakfast.  I put on a load of washing and we tidied up the caravan a bit.  (My housework fix!!)  Then we decided to go to Umoona Mine and do the tour. 

We had a bit of a look around the entrance to the tour area, which had a lot of information on the history of Coober Pedy, including prehistoric animals and aboriginal life.  The lady then told us that the next tour was not until 2pm, so we decided to go to the Old Timers Mine first and then come back.

We walked around to the Old Timers Mine and donned our hard hats!  With tour guide in our hand, we started the self guided tour.  We learned a fair bit about opal mining and the equipment they used.  Lucky we had the hard hats on as I bumped the ceiling more than a few times.  We had about 20 minutes break at the end before they were going to start up some of the machinery for a demonstration, so we raced back to the park and grabbed a quick lunch.

We just made it back to the Old Timers Mine as the demonstration began.  The guy started up the blower which is used to suck the mullock out of the mine.  We all got the chance to pick up some rocks and hold them under the “sucker” pipe.  I had to take my jewellery off first!!  It was amazing how powerful its “suck” was.  It sucked up quite large boulders and when you put your hand under it you had to fight against it sucking you in.  All the rocks and dirt is sucked up into a large barrel at the top and then when it is full, they pull the lever and dump the mullock onto a pile above the ground.

As soon as the demonstration was over, we raced back to the Umoona Mine to do their tour.  At the tour shop I pointed out a few nice pieces of jewellery to Darren (just in case) (Don’t worry he took no notice....), and then we joined the tour.  We first went into a modern home that was built underground.  She told us that 90 percent of Coober Pedians live underground.  It is a constant 23 degrees underground all year round so they don’t need heating or cooling.  We then walked through the mine itself and saw some opal in the wall that was “unmined”.  When the actual tour finished, we went into a theatrette and watched a film about how opal formed and about how it was first found in Coober Pedy.  We also found out the origins of the name Coober Pedy it means “White man’s Burrows” from when the Aborigines’ first saw the miners living in their underground homes.

With the tours finished the boys decided that they wanted to spend some of their hard-earned dollars.  They had decided what they wanted to buy when they had visited ALL the shops the day before, so we went back to those shops and they made their purchases.  Mitch decided on a boulder opal necklace that was on a black string.  It has gorgeous purple and green tones.  Thomas decided on a tin of uncut rocks containing mainly potch opal. (Potch opal is all white opal of no real value but some of them have some colour and can be polished and cut as real Opal)  that was mined in a local mine, it also has a couple of pieces of triplet inside.  Triplet is where the black opal has a backing behind it and a clear crystal coating on top that enhances its colour.  Their purchases in hand, they walked back to the caravan park with smiles on their faces.

After a bit of a rest and a play in the games room, we decided to go for a drive around Coober Pedy.  We stopped at the Cemetery for a look at the “beer keg headstone”.  We took a few pics and had a look at some of the gravestones and wooden crosses that marked the graves.  Then we decided to follow the map and do a loop around the outskirts that was supposed to take us back into the other side of Coober Pedy.

It was like driving around a quarry, except that every now and again you would see the front of a house built into the side of the hill, and a few cars parked outside.  This was the only way you could tell that they were actually underground homes.  There were no letterboxes of front gardens, just a flat area of dirt out the front.

After a few wrong turns and a visit to the parking area of an underground Serbian Orthodox Church we finally found our way back into town, and back to the caravan park.  I cooked tea while Darren filled the car with fuel for the next day.  After a tea of flake and potato gems we all hit the sack for an early night.

DAY 7

Up and at ‘em nice and early and back on the road. This day was to be pretty much a nothing day as we drove the 250 odd Ks to Marla for fuel and Lunch before continuing on to Maryat rest area which was to be our rest stop for the night. The boys had a kick of the footy with some kids that were camping there’ as the parents chatted of their adventures so far.  Darren did his MacGyver thing comparing notes with one of the travellers and the mods they had done to their respective vehicles and campers / caravans. The kids took off to some sand hills nearby and had a ball jumping off the dunes and returning covered in the red stuff.  Once again MacGyver to the rescue and out with the Gas camp shower to rinse off the dirt. Then a nice feed of Hamburgers and salad.

We then went for a walk down a track and chatted to some other campers that had set up away from everyone else; they were on their way back to WA after a trip up north.

As darkness set in so did the mice..... They were bad when we arrived as we saw hundreds running around but the darkness brought out more and more. They were running around everywhere, over your feet and even crawling up the canvas campers and over our caravan. We lay in bed listening to them scratch their way up the outside walls of the van. In the morning when I emptied the sullage bucket there were at least a dozen or more that had crawled in and drowned.

And now off to the Rock!!!!!!