Desert Cave Coober Pedy

Die Morgenstunden verbrachten wir noch in der Zivilisation. Noerdlich von Adelaide, an den Getreidefeldern vorbei, machten wir in Port Wakefield eine kurze Pause Port Augusta war dann der letzte Stop, bevor unser Bus auf dem Stuart Highway weiter nach Norden strebte. Die endlose Weite und die Salzseen waren fuer viele ein ungewohnter Anblick

Island Lagoon, Lake Hart und dann Glendambo mit dem lustigen Ortschild, das mit der Einwohneranzahl, der Zahl der dort ansessigen Schafe und den ...

Die Salzseen sind immer eine Faszination fuer die Passagiere.
Richard hat die Runde wohl schon oefters gemacht, das Raetsel in der Sonntags Zeitung scheint interessanter zu sein
Coober Pedy mit seinen Wuehlbergen, die aussehen wie Maulwurfshuegel, laesst die Kamera klicken.

Saturday, November 17, 2007 (Written by Stephen) Driving to Coober Pedy Not too much mucking around this morning just a quick game of cricket with Daniel, Ryan and William and then it was breakfast and pack up time. We are getting pretty efficient with the packing up especially when the boys chip in and help. Quick photos at the border sign and one of a Stuart Desert Pea and we crossed the SA border and headed south in a big convoy. Very desolate countryside out here, absolutely no trees just...

We took a little regional airline to a small outback town named "Coober Pedy" today. This town, home to about 4000 people, is known as the "Opal Capital of the World" as it produces over 95% of the world's opal. It is also interesting because most homes, hotels, and other buildings are underground due to the extreme heat of the desert. You might recognize Coober Pedy as several movies, including Mad Max III, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, and Pitch Black (with Vin Diesel) have been filmed aro...

whata cool place! coober pedy is truly unique, i mean, everyone lives and works underground here!!!! it's a dusty hell hole, so it's no wonder they prefer to be underground, but besides the dust and the flies that won't quit, the weather changes drastically here and they have very harsh extremes for winter and summer here, so living underground is the perfect way to ensure climate control and comfort. This town is famous for opal mining and they have some very beautiful places to search for o...

Day 62. Coober Pedy, South Australia. 755km from Uluru (Ayers Rock). We awoke at 6.10am and packed up the electrical lead (having done all our packing the night before). We were on the road and at the petrol station to fuel up for our long trip by 6.30am. We headed back into the park to watch Uluru at sunrise. Sadly it was much the same as last night (and much the same as 12 years ago)...not much cop! The clouds meant that the sun didn't directly hit the rock! Ah well at least we were up earl...

Friday was a very cool day. We flew to Coober Pedy in the morning from Adelaide in a smaller prop plane and landed in barren outback desert. Coober Pedy is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, opal mining areas in Australia. From the airplane you could see all of the mounds of dirt that had been brought up from digging the mine shafts. Once we landed and were transferred to our hotel, we then jumped on another bus and left for another four hour tour. We started at another hotel in the town...

After a 7:00 breakfast we had an 8:00 tour with Gunther who spent the first hour detailing opal generation, mining, quality and his life. Gunther emigrated to Coober Pedey in 1968 to seek his fortune in opals. He chased the opals for 10 years or so. It appears his fortunes were never made with the opals but rather the tourist industry that is attracted to Coober Pedey. He discussed several ventures he is involved in but his true talents lay in showing off the idiosyncrasies of Coober Pedey an...

The trip from Birdsville to Coober Pedey was a short one. The terrain did not vary a whole lot. It went from desert to a different kind of desert. It started off with the Dunes such as Big Red and lots of sand. From then on the landscape was pretty consistent. Out first stop was a little airstrip and restaurant at William Creek, pop. 2, and we were joined there by Bob and Loraine who decided to join our journey for awhile. We fueled up here and had lunch at the restaurant which appeared to be...