From Kingoonya we headed east to the Stuart Highway and then a couple of hours north to Coober Pedy. We were happy enough to be driving on smooth dust-free bitumen until a road train blew past and threw up a rock which cracked our windscreen. We knew it had to happen at some point!
Welcome to Coober Pedy
Neither of us really knew what to expect from Coober Pedy. As it turned out, it is one of the most weird and wonderful places we’ve visited. The town shimmers with the vibrancy of its weird and wonderful characters and of course the opals which have made it famous.
The sun beats down, a spaceship lies abandoned in the main street, caravans clog the road and dust swirls all around. On one occasion we watched open-mouthed as a whirly wind lifted a sheet of corrugated iron from the roof of a building and crashed it into the street, missing a parked car by an inch. No one batted an eyelid, so we guess it must happen regularly.
Are we on a Star Wars set?
Highlights included finding an opal in the public “noodling” area in Jewellers Shop Road (bonus points because Neddy Noodle felt so at home here), the Coober Pedy drive-in cinema (Laura had never been to a drive-in), and the underground Umoona Opal Mine and Museum which was a cool insight into the history of the area and a welcome respite from the sun.
Laura and the Noodle go noodling
Our opal! Photos do not do it justice
We also really enjoyed heading out of the main drag and driving around the residential area. It’s hard to imagine that the little houses (and their inhabitants) can withstand the unrelenting sun and dust day in, day out, year after year. Given the caves remain a comfy 23 degrees no matter the outside temperature we can see why many prefer to live underground.
Underground abodes
More than any other place we’ve visited, the harsh climate really made us reflect on the traditional owners of the area and to contemplate the connection and kinship the Aboriginal people must have had with the land to allow them to flourish here. Take away the cushiony comfort of our troopy and we know we’d struggle to last a day.
One afternoon we took a short drive north to the Kanku-Breakaways Conservation Park where we enjoyed the most breathtaking sunset of our trip. We made the very most of it, throwing open our rear door and cooking dinner on our little stove as we watched the daylight slip away.
Family portrait at the Breakaways
The land before time
Enjoying the last rays of light
We also had to allocate a portion of our time in Coober Pedy to figuring out what to do about our dead-as-a-doornail inverter, which had given up the ghost on Goog’s Track. After chats with our auto-electrician and the company the inverter was purchased from, it was decided that a new inverter would be posted to Alice Springs. In the meantime, laptop and camera charging wouldn’t be happening unless we stayed at caravan parks. Ahhhh damn.
Camping in Coober Pedy
