RED CENTRE - July 3 - 12: Woomera and Coober Pedy

At 7:30 in the early morning, we set off on a Banksia bus tour for our trip to Central Australia. There were 26 people on our tour, mostly teachers currently on exchange or others who had been on an exchange previously. The group hailed from New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Victoria. We had a morning break at Port Pirie, at a local park which had a heritage walk to view the area's history through sculptures.

We next travelled to Port Augusta for our lunch break. Here we toured the Wadlata Outback Centre, which was a museum showing the history of the outback plus it gave us an introduction into Aborigine stories and dreamings in the outback. Our next stop was at the Australian Arid Lands Botanic Garden for a look at the arid desert gardens

and for a viewing of the Flinders range.

As we continued onward, the scenery became sparser

and flatter. En route we spied an abandoned dome which served as an American reconnoissance airbase from which NASA operated a deep space tracking station in the 1960's. It was a spy base which served to gather information for the American/Australian space program. We finally passed through Pimba, a civilian town, and then arrived at Woomera, where we stopped for the night. Woomera had been a thriving military base in the rocket development era. Now the British, American and Australian rockets and airplanes remain as monuments to the bygone era.

Our "hotel" was really the converted military base, and our lodgings were one of the old men's sleeping quarters which had been made into accommodations. There was a nice lounge where we could relax before we were served a buffet supper. Later that night we were taken into a domed observatory, where we got a chance to view different constellations like the Jewel box of the Southern Cross. We could even clearly see the rings of Saturn! The accommodations were quite drab and rather basic, but little did we know that they were the last lodging of comfort that we were to have for the next several nights! The accommodations and the food were all to go downhill from this point!

Early the next morning we were served an outdoor breakfast from the back of the bus and then we were off on the long drive to our next destination, Coober Pedy. The bus stops en route were quaint indeed, selling petrol, coffee, Aborigine artifacts

and tourist souvenirs.

As we travelled north , the earth became ever redder in colour.

There had been a significant amount of rainfall this year, and so the vegetation was much more plentiful than we had imagined it to be in a desert, and we saw some beautiful blooming plants, including the bright Desert Sturt Peas. We also saw unusual species of insects, animals,

and plenty of sightings of the wedge-tailed eagle.

We passed the famous dog fence which is the longest fence in the world, built to keep northern dingoes away from the sheep.

Coober Pedy was the town made famous for its opal fields.

The town was once a lawless place, with miners staking a claim and then killing anyone who might invade that area. The mines are really just open pits, and so there are signs reminding the visitor that one should never walk backwards in an area, to avoid falling into a mine pit. It is predominantly an underground town because it gets exceedingly hot temperatures up into the high 50's in the summertime. So, 90% of the population have their lodgings built underground. Everywhere there are chimneys on the surface, which indicate that there is a dwelling under the ground at that spot. We arrived in Coober Pedy at a huge open desert area for lunch.

Little did we know that this place, with a little rock dormitory roughly hewn into the rock, was to be our place of abode for the night. In the afternoon we were given a tour of the town.

We got to visit an underground church,

an underground home complete with an underground swimming pool,

and an underground hotel. Under most of the buildings are opal deposits, places where the miners got rich if they struck it lucky. The underground home that we visited was said to be built by Faye, a lady who found opal as she was digging the foundation for her house!

Opal shops were everywhere. An opal dealer from Melbourne came up to take us to an open opal mining field. Here we tried our hand at getting rich through opal mining with pick and axe, but alas! we came away with only some "podge", which is fool's opal and basically worthless! Still, we had fun trying!

Nick then took us into his shop, explained the different types of opals that are mined and then introduced us to some of his lizard friends indigenous to the area.

At night, we all moved into the dormitory

which was only a series of crude openings carved into the sides of the rock, with bunk beds in them and a thin cotton curtain as a privacy door. The night was a sleepless one, sounding like a den of snoring bears. At night we had to make our way outdoors to the toilet - imagine my surprise to get outside only to find a wild dingo prowling around the ground! It was like we were back living in the stone age with Wilma and Fred Flintstone!