Coober Pedy

Day 111 – Coober Pedy, Australia

The joys of sleeping in underground caves with a flimsy curtain separating you from the corridor include running children at all hours, shouting, laughter, and goosing of said curtain because it is very fun to disturb people trying to sleep behind it.

Of course, the same children are the one awake at 6 am and starting all over again. That was a wonderful stay.

Once up, I went back to my favourite spaceship to take pictures by day.

Spaceship

It was near a museum cum opal gallery, Umoona museum, so I had a look at the history of the place, its geology, and a bit about opal mining.

A truism is that the more you like a bit of jewellery, the more expensive it ends up being. I couldn’t like the small, cheap earrings or pendants, no, only the too-expensive-to-even-consider-taking-a-second-look pieces. So, no opal for me.

But there was a giant ammonite, since this used to be a giant inland sea, and a few other fossils. One particularity here is that some fossils are made of opal, since the stone the bones turned into are the same one making the opals prevalent here.

Umoona museum – Giant ammonite

This museum is under a hill -it’s difficult to know if it is a small hill, a pile of refuse turned into a hill, or if it is the surrounding streets that have been carved up from the top soil. Anyway, the top of the hill has been decorated with sands and stones of different colours, making it a small stone garden or park, with a lookout over the city.

Umoona museum – Lookout in the stone garden

From there I walked idly into the town, until I came to a mining museum. I ended up not visiting because I thought the self-guided tour was free, which it wasn’t, and I found it a bit dear.

I went up to the “Big Winch”, a sculpture of a giant winch overlooking Coober Pedy. With the sun shining and no visitor, it was nice up there.

The Big Winch

A bit windy though, so after taking my pictures, I went to a lower parking space with picnic tables to while some time away… and got to make a new friend with an overly friendly (or hungry?) ginger cat.

My new friend

I was so well ensconced with a good story that I missed the feeding time for the kangaroo rescue centre. I was a bit sad by that, as I hadn’t seen proper kangaroos yet. (I saw plenty during the evening running from the bus after said bus had to violently  brake to avoid them.)

That was the sum of the easy, cheap attractions to see while on foot in Coober Pedy, so I went back to the hostel to eat and work on my future travels.

Coober Pedy – Strange sculptures

I received a message telling me the bus was one hour late; I showed up half an hour after the original departure time to be told from the bus driver to get on quickly and that I almost missed it. I still don’t understand how “one hour” translate into “half an hour”, but well, that’s why I went -I thought- early.

Nothing like being tired to sleep better, but still, sleeping aboard a bus is what it is. We had some entertainment, as the sudden braking -why do kangaroos prefer laying about on the road at night?- makes everything on the floor slide to the next seats… and some shoes were found way more forward than expected!

We arrived in Adelaide in the morning, fortunately for me, my hostel is a 3-min walk from the bus terminus.