In Search of a Gem

Sunset over salt lake (Lake Hart), just north of Pimba

Coober Pedy outlook from The Big Winch, top of town. Sally is standing on two large besser blocks)

This is what I'm looking at over the wall.  Zoom in it's pretty scary.

View of the main street, Coober Pedy

Panorama Coober Pedy, with some opal mines in distance

A tired Ray in the only patch of shade we could find

Welcome to Coober Pedi

The wide open road, Stuart Highway

Hard to get away from the flies

Underground house, cut out of rock

So, dear readers, here we are in Coober Pedy 846 kilometres north of Adelaide on the Stuart Highway, and 213 m above sea level.  Coober Pedy (originally known as the Stuart Range Opal Field, after John McDouall Stuart, who in 1858 was the first European explorer in the area) translates from Kupa to mean "white fellow's hole in the ground" which reflects the way in which most people live here, to escape the extreme climatic conditions of the area.  It sits on the edge of the erosional scarp of the Stuart Ranges, on beds of sand and siltstone 30 m deep and topped with a stony, treeless desert.  Very little plant life exists in town due to the region's low rainfall, high cost of water, the sandstone and lack of topsoil.

The many residents who prefer to live in caves bored into the hillsides (dugouts), do so because the dugouts remain at a constant temperature all year round (23-25 degrees C), in contrast to traditional houses which must be air conditioned to survive the often 50 degree C heat in summer.  However, as we were told when touring Faye's house (hand dug with picks and shovels in the 1960's by Faye Nayler and 2 friends) they are also subject to flooding, and in fact Faye's house has been flooded 3 times this year.  Each house has several shafts built to the surface which allow air flow to the underground rooms, but they are also difficult to seal, leading to flooding in heavy rains.

Opal was found in Coober Pedy by 14-year old Willie Hutchison on 1st February 1915; since then the town has been supplying most of the world's gem-quality Opal.   The opal fields cover an area of 4,954 square kilometres and consist of 70 individual fields.  Looking across the region from the highest point in town (the Big Winch), it is simply a vast sea of mullock heaps and there are signs everywhere warning visitors to keep watch where they are walking, lest they fall down a disused mine shaft, of which there are many (see pictures 3, 4  and 5 above).  The town is surrounded by a moon-like landscape dotted with shafts and mullock heaps, with the workings extending for nearly 40 km around the town.

We made the obligatory stop at Woomera, which was the 1947 site for launching of British experimental rockets.  Woomera lies within the bounds of the Woomera Prohibited Area (WPA) and is managed by Defence Support and Reform Group for the RAAF.  During the 1950s and 1960s the Woomera Rocket Range was the second busiest rocket range in the world, next to Cape Canaveral.  A total of seven British nuclear tests were conducted at Maralinga in 1956 and 1963.  The site was contaminated with radioactive materials and an initial cleanup was attempted in 1967, with another cleanup completed in 2000.  Debate continued over the safety of the site and the long term health effects on the traditional Aboriginal owners of the land, and former personnel.    For those of you to whom this is a revelation, check out Maralinga: Australia's Nuclear Waste Cover-up by Alan Parkinson.

The big excitement in town tomorrow is the footie game (presumably AFL as we are in South Australia) between the local team and that of Olympic Dam.  It seems everyone will be there, and we were given a lift today by a photographer from Adelaide who was sent to report on the game, so it must be a big deal.  After dropping us in town he was off to interview the local Postmaster, who is also the Mayor of the town, and will be the Referee for tomorrow's game.  Obviously a man for all seasons.

Unfortunately we won't be there, as we have exhausted the sights of Coober Pedy in the short time we've been here, and tomorrow we're headed the 688 kms to Alice Springs, with a possible stop at Kulgera (on the NT border).  We worked out the total kilometres from here to home and it's 4970!  If we make Darwin, that blows out by 2000!!!

Sally and Ray

PS  We bought fly nets for our hats in Port Augusta, knowing what a problem Central Australia has with flies (see Ray's back) and for the first 24 hours we cursed and swatted and sweltered in our black nets.  However, we were told this morning about a cream which repels flies, without the toxic DEET contained in most fly repellents.   We were fortunate to find some in the IGA in town (the Chemist sent us there as his stock had run out).  It's Rosemary and Cedarwood oils in a cream base and it smells lovely and works brilliantly. We both used it before we left the van this morning, and nary a fly troubled us all morning.  It's quite something to walk among the uninitiated, serenely fly-less and watch lesser mortals cursing and swatting!  We did, however, share our new knowledge with all and sundry, so I suspect the IGA has also run out of supplies today!