Coober Pedy 19th - 20th September

The drive south was very uneventful. It became very evident that there is nothing of significance on the Stuart Highway south of the centre. We crossed into South Australia and made it to Marla by 1:30pm and decided to keep going all the way to Coober Pedy. It was a long day in the car - over 750km.

We wanted to stay in a motel underground in Coober Pedy. We ended up staying in a motel called Lookout Cave. It is an old opal mine converted into accommodation. It was in a hillside overlooking the town. Our room was a walk down a rock walled corridor that went deep into the hillside. It was well set up with a double bed and three singles. The walls of our room were all rock faces.

We went out that night for pizza at “Johns Pizza Bar”. It was obviously the place to eat, as it was large and every table was filled. They were doing a bumper take away trade as well. It took a long time for our pizza to arrive. We headed back to the Lookout Cave exhausted. We spent a night in our windowless room deep underground.

The next morning we went to an opal mine to do a self-guided tour. The tunnels were rabbit warren like and we soon became disorientated even though we had a map. It was very difficult to translate the directions on paper to the underground tunnels. Archie was unsettled for the entire time we were underground in the mine and we returned to the Tarago to drive to Port Augusta. It was to be another long day in the car.

Archie and Imogen in our motel room

Jasper in our motel room

Entering the opal mine