Day 74/75: 1st and 2nd September. Shit Hole. Coober Pedy.

It must be said – Coober Pedy is a shit hole. A very interesting shit hole, but a shit hole nevertheless. About 60k from the town, the terrain changes and there are lots of mounds in the desert, like it has been attacked by the gopher in Caddyshack (hope some of you are with me on the references). Some big ones, some smaller, but lots and lots of them. At least the termite mounds in the NT looked interesting.

Driving through the town, it is Steptoe and Son’s dream (ok, this is a pretty old reference). Scrap metal is everywhere. In every yard, every house, even in the main street. An old movie prop has been left there – a spaceship from the Vin Diesel movie, “Pitch Black”. The dust has turned from red to white, but it is even more intrusive, a finer grain and voluminous. Shops are boarded up, and not all because they are closed…but to protect from break in and vandalism. The caravan parks in town are locked up from around 7pm to 6am to keep out trouble makers.

Again, we have elected to stay out of town at a park called Tom Cat Hill. It is about 15 minutes out, and it has a steeply graded, windy dirt track to get to the site. Unmade and dusty, and rough enough to knock the clothes and everything else off the shelves. The site only holds round 12 vans which are all backed against a cut out mountain, giving a view back over the Painted Desert which was quite spectacular. The sunset drinks with the small group up there around the campfire was a highlight, and the bathrooms were newly installed giving ample space to wash and get dressed, without being barged in on.

It was a bit hard to get to and out of the way, and I think the council might find it hard to get up there as well. Power extension leads and water hoses running all over the place made for an interesting OH&S challenge. Even a room he had tried to cut out of the hill had started to collapse. Even though the structure was closed off, it was worrying to see the cracks in the rock. Like the NT, there is no need for OH&S officers. If you do something silly, you will only do it once.

There are houses underground, but not all of them like you are led to believe. The highlight is Faye’s underground home, a dwelling made by a women pioneer who found her fortune working bloody hard digging her house, and her mining tunnels by herself. She also made herself a legend in the town for the parties she and her partner (referred to in the literature as her lady friend) threw in her house. The part that was above ground was the most spectacular games room not only complete with a pool table, but a pool. Where water was scarcer than the opals in the ground, she trucked in a pool full of water to party in. What a legend.

Opals are not our thing, but it was interesting to learn they are from dinosaur fossils, and the museum was informative talking about the fossils and the inland sea that used to be there. All well and good, but lunch indoors in a nice café overlooking the town out of the wind and dust, was a bit of a highlight as well.