Kim's two week winter break finally came and gave us the chance to travel into the heart of the outback. We hired a car and drove from Adelaide up to Uluru and Alice Springs. Our friends Larry and Caroline joined us for the trip as well and it was nice to have some compnay for the long drive. The land was desolete and the vegetation sparsley populated with mostly scrub trees and the ocassional gum tree. It really gave me a sense of how vast the distances are between places in Australia and how much of the country is very inhospitable with dry barren desert land. We literally drove for hunderds of miles before coming to any roadhouse service station for gas and food. Along our trip on the Stuart Highway we passed several huge 24 wheeler tankers freighting cargo accross the outback. In Australia they are called road trains, and you could feel the vibrations from the oncoming road train rattle your car as they flew by. We gave them a wide berth whenver possible.
Our Subaru Outback rental for our long trip through the Outback! (Thanks Caroline for the great photo!)
This was the view from our car for hundreds of miles along the Stuart Highway.
The town of Coober Pedy was our first stop. It is a small town in the central part of the outback in South Australia. It is the Opal mining mecca in Australia and the world. The name for the town is derived from an Aboriginal phrase meaning "white man's hole in the ground" and it defines this place. More than half of the population lives underground due to the extreme heat during the summer where tempatures can reach over 50 degreess (122 Farenheit!) and the cold freezing nights. We stayed underground at Radeakas backpackers hostel. The are many tourist attractions that cater to the underground town by offering undergournd accomodations and lodging. You can even take tours of houses, churches, shops, restraunts, and museums all built underground. There are also several working mines you can go and tour as well.
Coober Pedy- the hot, dry, and dusty town is the outback frontier town for Opal mining in Australia.
The economy and lifeblood of the town is Opal Mining. Opal is formed from a silica that contains 6-10% water. The color in the opal is produced when the white light is being reflected and split up by the pattern arrangment from the silica. Its value is determined by the color and clarity of the opal and size of course. The brighter and clearer the color the more valuable it is. However, black is the rarest color in opals and the most expensive. Since it is hit or miss in finding opals- the mines are all run by small private companies- the uncertain nature of opal mining deters corporations from operating any mines. There have been individual fortunes made and lost in this town and the town had a lot of local character.
This funky little opal shop converted a VW bug into the "Opal Bug"- the sign below it says "Noodling" which is the term used to describe scrounging through the dirt looking for opals, gems, rocks, or whatever. Kim and I did our fair share of "Noodling" while there. The post sign beside the shop tells you just how far from nowhere you really are. Coober Pedy is only 14,492km from Nashville Tennesee USA.
Pyramid dirt mounds from the remains of underground mine shafts dug up in the quest for Opal. This type of lunar landscape dots the horizon all around Coober Pedy.
With over 250,000 mine shafts lying around the area, you need to pay extra attention to where you place your feet!
