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Coober Pedy Reinvestigated
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Feeling we didn't give it enough of a chance on the way up, we decided to give Coober Pedy a chance to redeem itself on the way down, if only to break up the drive more than anything else.
On arrival it appeared as weird as ever, featuring loads of dusty Aboriginal people seemingly barking at each other! We attempted to visit an underground church, but it was closed for refurbishment, and so sated our underground curiousity by visiting Faye's Underground Home, which Faye herself had dug out back in 1961, when Coober Pedy had just been discovered as a hot bed for opals. We rang the doorbell and were warmly invited in, as if visiting an old friend - it was quite surreal. The bloke that lives there now with his wife showed us round all the rooms, explaining how every was built, and how it stays cool using air vents etc.
 
It was like a little maze, kinda small and cozy but featuring loads of stuff - even a bar and a cellar. The bloke showed off his proudest assett - the fact that they picked up telly from Queensland! Then he took us upstairs to the ground level indoor swimming pool (the first one in Coober Pedy), and the games room, where he left us to make ourselves at home... we didn't need telling twice ;)
  
There was an article about golf on the table that I started reading, and this set the bloke, a keen golfer, off on one, telling me how Coober Pedy is the only course in the world to have reciprocal rights with St Andrews in Scotland, and how people join the Coober Pedy club for 60 bucks, and get to play free at St Andrews, which would normally cost an arm and a leg. He was telling us how a bloke from Scotland flew out to give him a game! And he beat him... of course. But then, there was no grass on the Coober Pedy course - just dirt, so I can imagine its an entirely different game to golf altogether! Like playing in a giant bunker?!
After that little jaunt, and having seen a more homely side to Coober Pedy, raising it in our estimations, we departed again for the highway, knowing we were halfway-ish to Port Augusta...
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