Into the Interior

Long drive today. We left Port Augusta and headed up the A87/Stuart Highway, named for the first European to cross Australia from South to North. This road is the major route up the middle, but despite this  there is hardly any traffic. Other than caravans and the occasional "ute" we are now mainly sharing the road with the infamous Road Trains. These are semis pulling 3 or 4 trailers, over 50m in length.

Passing a short Road Train...at least you can see a ways up the road!

Lots of dead roos and cattle on the roadside

We saw more emus than any other wild animal along this stretch

There is a whole lot of nothing along this road. Not many towns, and hardly any other roads. The desert is getting redder, but the scrub is surprisingly green, especially since it is fall in the Southern Hemisphere. We drive and drive and drive. As we got closer to our intended stop for the night, Coober Pedy (about the only "town" on this stretch of road), things got a little more interesting.

Our first Dingo, heading into town

Apparently people fall into holes out here

There are several camping options in Coober Pedy. Once we read about it, Shawn kind of set his heart on the one that boasted of the unusual offering of "underground camping." This leads us down a road that does not look very much like a vacationer's paradise...more like some kind of industrial site. But there, in the middle of some opal mining operation is the caravan park. It's kind of an interesting place, but one o the more striking features is the black flies that swarm around your face. They don't bite but it seems like their prime directive is to fly up your nose. Fortunately there is a brisk breeze, so if you stand just right, you can keep them out of mucus membranes. Or, you can buy one of the fly nets for sale at the registration office. They are meant to be worn over a hat, but I see one camper with one on her head. The flies are definitely annoying.

We can camp in one of the underground rooms, a former working opal mine, for "free" if we pay for the evening's mine tour. The tour costs about what a campsite would, so I'm not sure of the reason for offering it this way, but whatever. The people are friendly, and although the underground rooms do somewhat resemble prison cells, it will be be nice to set up the tent out of the wind. We can even leave the rain fly off.

Our cell ;)

View of the park and huge sky

going underground

We decide to go out for pizza in town before the tour; we also had time to do a bit of shopping at one of the many opal retailers that line the main drag. It's a bit of a hard sell, and I am looking seriously at some lovely stones, when Shawn finds the Boulder Opals, and it's all over. ;) I select 3 beautiful stones, with flecks of opal in the native rock, and cut so that a wire channel wraps along the edge. These will make beautiful jewelry when I get my hands on my tools again someday... The pizza place, John's Pizza Bar and Restaurant, is great. We had an Aussie Bush pizza with kangaroo and emu meat on it, and scarfed the whole thing. The proprietor came out to talk with us. He was, interestingly enough, Greek, and had been here for 27 years. He said it's like the wild west without guns. He had spent some time in the US and talked to us a little about the current state of affairs, and bought us a cappucino. It was a nice time.

The Opal Mine Tour is quite interesting, and well attended. Our guide, the same bloke who checked us in earlier, really knows his stuff. The whole reason for this town is opal deposits...over 80% of the world's opals come from this area. Shawn is quite down with the geology, I just love opals.

Shawn with the divining rods, trying to detect a prehistoric slip

Our guide gave us quite the detailed description of the process of using explosives to move rock!

As it turns out, another term for "underground camping" could be "snore amplification chamber." We couldn't see the other campers in the other rooms, but in the middle of the night we could certainly hear some of them at least! So it wasn't the most restful night for me, but come morning we were ready to head to our next destination: Uluru!