Day 164 Coober Pedy

It is time to explore the desert, more precisely making our way up to the Opal City Coober Pedy. Stuart is happy to be back on the Stuart Highway. First stop on the drive is Woomera with its outdoor Rocket Museum. Stuart enjoyed exploring all the rockets and planes, but otherwise it is just a former 'war material testing area' with an Australian Army base.

On the drive north we stopped at the Island Lagoon Lookout for some views on the dry lake. In the area of Kokatha we stopped at Lake Hart, where at the car park some people had a pretty simple set-up for camping: mattress on top of the car. Stuart enjoyed the views on the Lake Hart but even more the wildflowers around with blossoms in the middle of the desert.

On the drive there were many lizards on the street warming up and running away as soon as we approached them, luckily for us in the right direction off the street. There were also some birds of prey looking for their next bite with a big nest next to the street. The other funny sighting on the drive was some Christmas decoration on a bush.

The big Coober Pedy sign with a typical opal mining car to remove the dust from the underground mining sites marks the start of this town. Well, it is a pretty strange town with strange people and strange sights: you see everywhere piles of dust & dirt with one or more holes where people look for opals. There are underground churches, an old spaceship and tourist mining tours as well as Opal Shops all over the town but one sees barely a soul except around the supermarket. The cafes & waffle shops were closed. So we went to take a photo of the Coober Pedy Hollywood sign and discovered the Big Winch, where Stuart wanted to join and have a look at the mining exhibition. Stuart enjoyed some fun time with the Big Winch, the mining car and the art tree on display, before Stuart had to see the Stuart Memorial just outside of Coober Pedy. Another wired and funny thing to see in Coober Pedy is the golf course with 'keep off grass' signs but no grass anywhere to be seen.

After this big day with lots to see for Stuart, he was happy to finally have some gelato again, given the weather was now warm & sunny. Stuart then wanted to have an early night so he would be ready for the opal hunt in the Opal City on the next day.