Day 7 &8

After an earlier start than has been the intrepid travellers motored all day and made it the 500+km to Coober Pedy just on sunset. This saw the camp established half in daylight and half with lighting in operation.

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                                                                  entry to Coober pedy

Day 7&8

Talking to the neighbours as we set up was good as they passed on some info on a couple of tours that they had done during their days here before our arrival

This also saw another early rise to breakfast and meet a tour bus at the camp entry for a 3 hour tour of the diggings and history of Coober Pedy. Very informative. The name came from the indigenous people who thought the white man odd to go under the ground. The name sort of translated from white man who lives in hole.

Full blood locals will not go under ground as it makes the earth spirit unhappy.

Following a tour of the local hot spots the tour visited a Serbian church built underground. Or maybe the definition is excavated underground.

Excavation was by using a horizontal boring machine to bore a pattern of holes that shape the floor and walls. Then another machine with a rotary horizontal barrel cutter then finishes off to create a very liveable underground.

                                               Looking to the stalls seats

Carved into the sandstone above the altar

Rudi our guide standing on the platform at the front of the church

                                                              Grandma noodling

                                                                    Opal in the ground

The tour finished just before lunch which gave time for a quick bite to eat, ten minutes rest and off to look at a geological feature named the “Breakaways”

Do not know if this pic does justice to the fact that the clouds appeared to be floating about 20 metres off the ground and you could almost reach up and grab them

Thats it for Coober Pedy