After the massive days travel yesterday we had the luxury of a whole day and a night to explore Coober Pedy and the surrounds.
The name “Coober Pedy” is comes from the Kokatha-Barngarla term kupa-piti, which translates to “whitefellas’ hole.
It is also known as the opal capital of the world. To avoid the fierce heat of the day a lot of the miners lived underground, in houses or caves they dug out while mining for opals. Dinky Di’s Dugout is an example of a dugout home.
Naturally, first stop was the Pitch Black spaceship.
From Wikipedia: “Most of the filming, including all of the external locations, took place in and around Coober Pedy, South Australia. It was winter in the region, and rain before the shoot caused filming delays.”
“The Big Miner – Established in 1966. Specialists in rough and cut opal, matrix, concrete, unique fossils, specimens and hand-crafted jewellery.”
The Blower is a symbol of Coober Pedy more than any other. It is a device used to extract opals from mines. You can see them all around the city.
Coober Pedy golf club is the only one in the world with reciprocal rights to the hallowed St Andrew’s course in Scotland.
This came from a 2003 satellite-link exchange, arranged by a film maker doing a opal mining documentary at Coober Pedy, between St Andrew’s general manager Alan McGregor and opal fields club president Kim Kelly. The humourous McGregor offered rights to St Andrew’s in exchange for an opal mine. Kelly promptly staked a mine claim near the course and sent off a few opals and a how-to mining brochure.
“The first hand dug mine from 1916. You can wear a hard hat and go through the mine, the museum and the underground home. Go noodling pits after the tour to look for opals. A souvenir and jewellery shop is also available.”
From the web site: “Some of Australia’s most spectacular breakaway country has taken over 80 million years to evolve from the time of the ancient inland sea. This area has eroded away over time, and combined with the leaching of minerals from the soil, create this magical area where colours change during the day, making it a photographer’s delight.”
Weirdly a fence is also an attraction. The Dog Fence. Granted it’s a really long fence. Doesn’t sound interesting? Read on.
The Dog Fence is a pest-exclusion fence to keep dingoes out of part of the continent (where they have largely been exterminated) and protect the sheep flocks of southern Queensland. It is one of the longest structures in the world. It stretches 5,614 kilometres (3,488 mi) from Jimbour on the Darling Downs ending west of Eyre peninsula on cliffs of the Nullarbor Plain.
Perfect to film a Mars themed reality TV series don’t you think.
We had late lunch/early dinner at the Outback Bar and Grill where I spied this mirror on the wall.
William Shatner was in Coober Pedy to film Stars on Mars. It is an American reality competition TV series. It features celebrities living together in a base camp designed to simulate living on Mars. I hope I never see it.
Coober Pedy to Maree
This part of the trip wasn’t in the original plan. In the original plan we stuck to tarmac’d roads. However, a few days before we left I was watching a program on TV about some of the most remote pubs in Australia and some of them looked like places I’d like to see. The trouble was they were hard to get to many miles down dirt tracks. A bit Googling later I discovered a couple of them would actually be en route for us if only we had a good off road vehicle. I realised I was planning this as if I was still driving the wee Mazda. Oh wait! We did have a mad off road vehicle. Route and plans were updated and now the Williams Creek Road and the Oodnadata Track were part of the route.
370 kms along some of the best outback dirt roads available. Fantastic!
It wasn’t long before we came upon our first abandonded vehicle. We saw a few more along the way.
I am sure we will be ok. Pretty sure. Probably ok.
This remote area is where the Australian Defence Force test missiles. The road is closed when missile testing is happening but given the ambiguity of the road open/closed sign earlier I doubt we’d be stopping for anything.
Up until now we’d see lots of roadside roadkill. I’ve not included it in the blog as its not pleasant however the roadkill along this route warrants a mention.
One of the remote bars that appeared in the TV program was the William Creek Hotel. I was intrigued to visit this interesting place.
The hotel is surrounded by largest cattle farm in the world, Anna Creek Station. It covers 15,746 square kilometres. That would make it slightly smaller than Kuwait.
The next leg of the journey took us from William Creek to Maree.
Lake Eyre is Australia’s largest salt lake. It
Between Lake Eyre and Maree we were surprised to find Finnis Springs Sculpture Park
The retired mechanic and artist Robin Cooke started the park in 1997. It’s not on any official map but it is definately worth a stop. There were to many sculptures to post in this blog.
A little bit farther we entered Maree where we would be staying for the night. You are not mistaken, there is a Lake Eyre Yacht Club in Maree.
More info on Maree and the Lake Eyre Yacht Club in the next blog.
Walligans Travels 