Coober Pedy

Coober Pedy is filled with things that bring, how shall we say, the homemade touch into focus. This place is filled with people who were forced, or in a few case, chose, to do it themselves. The quest for opals has driven many people to work very hard for a very long time. It is not really clear to me that any of them have really made a lot of money.



Getting here is nowadays a long drive on a sealed road but it wasn't always like this. In fact, there are still ways to get around this part of South Australia on unsealed roads.

Regardless of the nature of the road, the countryside is nearly empty and the road seems endless.

A look back towards town and you see the tracks of a previous visitor along the edge of the road. This is where you see what happens when the road gets wet: deep mud. This is why some roads in the area are closed. This is why I fretted the folks in William Creek for days about the condition of the road from Coober Pedy since the only way in or out is via unsealed road.

After a brief excursion into the edge of the emptiness, we headed back to the town to the Umoona Museum for bit of orientation. This is one of the many places around town that are carved from the rock. No doubt this is the result of some mining activity in the past.

The high point in town is called the "Big Wench". A large replica of the sort of wench traditionally used to lift dirt from an opal mining hole has been built on top of the hill and the area around it is a lookout for us silly tourists.

You can really tell that we are in the desert here. You can almost count the trees in the view and not need both hands to do it.

The mounds of dirt everywhere attest to the ubiquity of people digging hole to find opals. Opals and tourism are what this town is all about these days.

I especially appreciate the nice guardrail that run around the edge of the hill to keep us from falling down the hill. Oh wait...what guardrail?