September 17th, 2024
We did not see much on the William Creek Road to Coober Pedy except a few signs for boreholes (water from the Basin), some cattle and 2 emus racing away.
The town of Coober Pedy in South Australia is a major source of opal. It is said 90% of the world’s opals, come from Down Under. Oral history suggests that Aboriginal people knew where opals were in the Coober Pedy area, but did not value them because food was more important. In 1915, the first opals near Coober Pedy were found by a gold prospector.
Following WWWI, returning soldiers sought employment in the opal mines, which were expanding rapidly, and following WWII many refugees, veterans, and immigrants from Southern and Easter Europe found employment in the mines as well. Aboriginal people were also employed in the industry from the 1940s. While opal mining around the town had slumped in the early 1940s, it picked up after a local Aboriginal woman, Tottie Bryant, discovered a large deposit in 1945
Coober Pedy supplies most of the world’s gem-quality opal; it has over 70 opal fields. Around 95 per cent of the opals mined today are gray, white potch, or common opals which are less valuable as they do not have opalescence. Black opals and other precious opals are rarer, but much more valuable for their opalescence and other desirable optical properties.
The world’s largest and most valuable gem opal “Olympic Australis” was found in August 1956 at the “Eight Mile” opal field in Coober Pedy. It weighs 17,000 carats (3.4 kg / 7.5 lb) and is 280 mm / 11” long, with a height of 120 mm / 4.75” and a width of 110 mm / 4.5”. It was valued at AU$2,500,000 (roughly US$1,708,000) in both 1997 and 2005, and is currently held in the offices of one of Australia’s most prominent vendors and authorities on opals.
We did find that the soil in this part of the Outback was the red we were expecting – it was not really that way on the Track – most light coloured and very dusty.
As we got closer to the town, we began to see lots of hills and mines:
Our first stop was at the Welcome area:
Here there is a sign like this:
And a big truck on stilts:
We knew we could boondock at the parking lot of the Old Timers Mine but wanted more info on the town. We stopped to air up the tires first at the first gas station (free) and then drove across the road to the Info Centre to get brochures and of course, information.
We drove to the parking lot and parked, had lunch and then walked into the town to see a few things and do some shopping.
We walked over to the Museum and did the self-guided tour. You pay $12 as a senior and get a hard hat as many of the tunnels are quite low.
We saw seams of opal:
Many small caverns where mining had taken place:
A small museum with many artifacts of history about opal mining and the outback.
Peep holes:
Opalized sea shells
A windsock that catches the breeze and helps ventilate the mine:
The holes made by miners to climb shafts:
Underground homes with various rooms:
An underground post office:
Upon leaving the mine museum, we saw “The Big Winch” on the hill:
It is 8m / 26’ high structure which overlooks the town was built by Klaus Wirries in the 1970’s to celebrate the Opal Capital of the World. The Big Winch was rebuilt after it was destroyed by gale force winds in 1986.
We walked through the residential streets (reminded us the residential area of Pahrump) and got back to the main drag near the Info Centre. First stop was a hardware store to pick up a half dozen items then we walked around the corner to get a cold drink. Here they had lots of soda on sale and we grabbed several as well as a tire repair kit (we had a spray can but wanted more security).
We went to see the St. Peter and Paul Catholic church with is an underground church but it wasn’t open.
How’s this for random, this is a prop from the movie Pitch Black. The cockpit of Hunter Gratzner is still here in the carpark, left over from the filming in Coober Pedy back in 2000. It has been nickname a mini “Millenium Falcon”.
Having seen the “sights” we went over to the IGA and picked up some groceries before walking back to Matilda. We did see this large sculpture of a lizard:
It’s starting to warm up as we head north (that’s so weird to say!) and today it hit 24C / 75F and it’s supposed to get a few degrees warmer tomorrow. As much as we wanted it to be warmer, it’s now warming up too fast! Yes we’re being picky. However, it does cool down at night still into the high single digits for good for sleeping as we are in the desert.
As we’ve been driving for a week, we decided to take a day off and stay camped at the Miner’s Museum in Coober Pedy. We could chill some, get a few more things sorted and Fran could work on the website in a larger chunk of time.
After exercising, Doug found himself a camping sleeping self-inflating mattress that fits in down the hallway of Matilda and hope he sleeps better there – it worried him about waking up Fran and having to crawl over her. This crawling over each other business at night is not for us and Fran insisted on having the outside part of the bed.
Something we noticed after seeing cactus in someone’s garden here is that in the outback we’ve not seen ANY cactus but we have seen succulent plants.
Doug worked on repairing the gennie leg, getting it more stable as well as fixing the wiper fluid sprayer. The young Aussies (Tyler, his girlfriend, Jess and his best friend, Tay) beside us tried to help and were very kind. Yesterday evening, someone tried to cram into the space between them and us (!?!?!) and they kindly told them to find another place. There were right beside each of us as if we were in a parking lot! The young men then put out their awning so no one else could try that trick. It was not like the place was super full – there were other places to park.
Today it definitely got warmer – up to 30C / 86F – our warmest day yet. Fran had to use a fan in the rig while working on this blog. The constant breeze was coming from the wrong side of the rig unfortunately.
A fellow a couple of spots over came over while Doug was working on the wiper sprayer again and he suggest taking the piece out, letting it sit in boiling water and then it should clean out better using a pin (which Doug had been trying anyway) and well, that worked!
In the late afternoon, we got some wonderful news: that darn French website that we have been using to dissolve our French company has now advised that everything appears acceptable and EU Escapes has been dissolved. We could not have done this without the help of the woman who bought Minou in April and we will be eternally grateful to her for her help in “validating” documents each time we submitted them. This really quite a milestone for us as it’s been SO frustrating dealing with doing this ourselves rather than paying a small fortune to some professionals to take care of it.
We went out for dinner to “John’s” which is reputed to be the best in South Australia – it was pretty darn good too!
It was also a much warmer night, not unbearable but certainly no need for all the blankets we’ve been having to use. Doug said he slept better on his new mattress too.
That morning, Doug borrowed Tyler’s ladder that he uses to get into his rooftop tent to get up and lean the solar panels. He noticed that one of the solar panel legs was loose and another was no longer attached! This is really all because he could never find self levelling sealant he really wanted during the install so he walked over to the hardware store once again (about his sixth trip over there) to look for some. Didn’t really find what he wanted but he found something anyway. The problem is where the legs are attached is a more sloped section of the roof and hard to get the leg to stay in.
That evening, we bought a six pack of beer and had a happy hour with the Aussies to thank them for their help. Doug also gave them some fuses for their solar systems.
The evening was cooler tonight and we both slept well; Doug is getting used to his new bed and finding it pretty good.
Friday morning, we packed up and left around 8:30, stopped to dump, tried to get water with no success and took a drive to Kanku-Breakaways Conservation Area, just outside Coober Pedy. This was a 40 km drive that took us back to the Stuart Highway to head north.
We saw the vast “moonscape” landscape:
More of the Dingo Fence:
We noticed how much redder the soil was in this area although in the morning, the sun bleaches it somewhat.
There was a lookout called: Papa Kutjara which means Two Dogs:
And finally the Breakways view point:
Travelling today and we’ve seen some other days, we came up behind a huge semi with a sign that says “road train”.
The term road train is used in Australia. In contrast with a more common semi-trailer towing one trailer or semi-trailer, the diesel prime mover of a road train hauls two or more trailers or semi-trailers. Australia has the longest and heaviest road-legal road trains in the world, weighing up to 200 tonnes (197 long tons; 220 short tons). Some roads in some states regularly allowing up to 4 trailers at 53.5 m / 175’ 6” long and 136 tonnes (134 long tons; 150 short tons).
Today we saw three cyclists, no kangaroos (except dead ones) or emu. We do see SO many vehicles pulling trailers (what they call caravans here) – it seems to be much more popular then motorhomes although we do see many of them and lots of vehicles with roof top tents. Cars on this Stuart Highway are in the minority.
At one kangaroo carcass today, we saw a wedge-tailed eagle eating it. They are apparently quite possessive of their food and will scare off other birds like ravens and other birds of prey. One fellow told us that they often wait until the last second to fly off when a car is coming and have been known to fly right into its windscreen!
The wedge-tailed eagle also known as the eagle hawk, is the largest bird of prey in Australia. It is also found in southern New Guinea to the north and is distributed as far south as the state of Tasmania. Adults of the species have long, broad wings, fully feathered legs, an unmistakable wedge-shaped tail, an elongated upper mandible, a strong beak and powerful feet. It has a maximum reported wingspan of 2.84 m / 9’ 4” and a length of up to 1.06 m / 3’ 6”.
The wedge-tailed eagle is one of the world’s most powerful avian predators. Although a true generalist, which hunts a wide range of prey, including birds and reptiles and small marsupials. The introduction of the European rabbit has been a boon to the wedge-tailed eagle and they hunt these and other invasive species. Additionally, wedge-tailed eagles often eat carrion, especially while young. The species tends to pair for several years, possibly mating for life.
We stopped to fill up in Marla (at $2.18 a litre) and then about an hour later, crossed into the state called Northern Territory which stretches all the way up to the Darwin on the north coast. We stopped at a “roadhouse” which has a campground and got a spot for the night (not much in the way of wild camping in this part of the country except rest areas and many of those in this part don’t have a cell signal). We paid $34 AUD ($23 USD) for a spot with power and water. Not too bad at all and there’s a hotel here, a restaurant, a pub, showers/toilets and laundry as well as Wi-Fi but it did not seem to reach our spot; no worries we have plenty of data which here is coming in at four bars of 4G.
We got parked next to a lone tree after topping the tank once again (at $2.71 a litre) as it gets worse from here northwest and went for a shower to cool off. It’s warm, around 30C again / 86F but the humidity is low.
Have we mentioned the flies!?!?!? They are relentless at times and it makes going for a walk uncomfortable as they love to land on your face! Fran bought a couple of fly nets in Coober Pedy and they do help.
The clouds came in before sunset so we didn’t see any colour but we had nice hot air popped popcorn since we were hooked up and had a quiet evening. The campground did not fill completely but many others came in after us.
After exercising (Doug did a fourteen mile run – his longest in a long time), showers, dishes and tea we began to get ready to hit the road once again. As Fran was topping off the water tank, she noticed the back tire on the passenger side was flat. Uh oh! She went over to the campground office and was told there was a tire/towing place across the road and to call first giving her the number. She called and Chris said, he’d open the gate and to come on over.
So it turns out that tire was cracked and he said the Coopers brand was crap. The other back tire was also a Coopers and it too, was not in great shape. So Doug asked him to check the spare – it was 20 years old so there was no way we could rely on that. Luckily Chris had two tires that would fit and we had him install those and put the remaining Coopers tire on as the spare. This cost us a total of $700 AUD ($480 USD) so considering that we were in the middle of nowhere, AND he had only two tires that would have worked, we couldn’t complain too much. So another thing on this rig, that they didn’t tell us about.
As it was getting rather late in the morning and we had miles to do, we bought a quick crappy toasted sandwich breakfast back at the campground while Chris was doing the above and then we left. He had also suggested getting roadside assistance with a company called RACV. Now we had looked into this with RAA while un Adelaide, but they wouldn’t cover us. He said RACV would – Fran called and since we don’t have an address in the state of Victoria, it wasn’t going to work.
So we finally got going and began to make our way to the city of Yulara – the city located next to Uluru – formerly known as Ayer’s Rock.
Enroute we stopped at a pullout to see “Fool-uru”. And it did fool us because we thought it was Uluru but it looked not quite as expected – turns out it was Mount Connor which is also known by locals as “Fool-uru” or “Fuluru”, owing to tourists sometimes confusing it with Uluru just as we did!
As a side note, we have been trying to book a ferry to get us over to Tasmania next month without much success. There doesn’t seem to be many that take vehicles, let alone one Matilda’s height but we’ll keep trying.
Check out ALL the photos here.
