On the road to nowhere
Most of the population live near the coast, perhaps explaining why Aussies are so cheerful and relaxed about everything. But the real country is the outback, so after travelling west, half way along the South Coast it’s time to make a sharp right turn at Adelaide and head north up through the “Red Centre”. Just on the northern edge of South Australia is Coober Pedy. This is a weird kind of place, and made for an interesting stopover.
This is the opal mining capital of the world, but is just a dusty town where two thirds of the population live underground as the ground temperatures reach 65 degrees in the middle of summer. It was only low 40s today. Opal was discovered here by a teenage boy in 1915 and since then countless people have come to try and make their fortune, many failing miserably. As long as you aren’ty a big company, anyone can go and claim their patch of land and prospect for opal. It’s a proper wildwest town with a couple of dusty streets.
I go out to the spectacular Breakaways rocks in the desert, stopping off to go noodling (prospecting) for opals in the desert trying not to fall down many of the 1000s of open shafts. I didn’t succeed so won’t be upgrading my remaining flights to first class, and will continue to share a room with 9 other snoring people. There’s a grass-free golf course twinned with St Andrews in Scotland and the moon landscape which is completely desolate. Many eccentric people live here (nutters may be a better word) including the recently deceased Crocodile Harry whose home is decorated with, amongst other things, crocodile skulls and girls underwear.
To illustrate the point further, we are introduced to some man in the pub that evening called Flip Top. You just nod and agree!
24 hours here is enough and along with a couple of people I met, we head further north to Alice Springs. Finally I met some people who are actually on holiday here, instead of the majority of people on the south coast who seem to have come 10s of 1000s of miles from home to work as they don’t have enough money, and be miserable because they have to work. Why bother?!
Tags: Travel
Nick