The Ghan, Alice Springs - Coober Pedy

The journey from Alice Springs to Coober Pedy is a long one, and the train travels quite fast for almost the entire night. Despite this, we were able to get some good sleep. In the morning, we had a tour in Coober Pedy to see the highlights. The tours are all excellently organized, and the guides are knowledgeable and well-trained. At each stop, drinks and even snacks are offered. The excursion started from our stop and involved a bus ride of about 40 km over unpaved roads to Coober Pedy. There is no longer a train station, and due to the renovation of the north-south road and railway, it is now located further away from the town. Coober Pedy is famous for its opal deposits. The town currently has about 1,500 inhabitants. A few years ago, when opal was in higher demand, there were over 5,000 residents. First, we drove through the mining regions around the town. In principle, to extract opal, a hole of about 15 - 20 meters deep is dug. From this hole, horizontal shafts are then excavated. It seems more like a gamble than a skill or hard work; one can dig just a few centimeters past a large find and thus barely make a living from modest finds or strike it rich. As mining has been ongoing since the early 20th century, there are small piles of spoil from the various excavations everywhere. When a mine is abandoned, the shafts are not filled in; this is considered dangerous. Therefore, the spoil heaps remain unchanged. Nowadays, however, very little is dug by hand. In Coober Pedy, for example, earth-suckers have been invented that bring the spoil up to the surface. In addition, drills and simple tunneling machines are used. Opal is even extracted in large-scale open-pit mining. In Coober Pedy, summer temperatures can reach up to 50°C, and winter brings freezing temperatures. To be able to live normally, a solution was found early on: people live in abandoned mines. There, the temperature stays between 21 and 24°C year-round. Today, some 'normal' houses are still being built, but many houses are created using new shafts dug as underground apartments rather than old mines. Each underground room has a ventilation chimney, which can be seen from above. Typically, a small house is built above ground that includes a bathroom and toilet, laundry room, as well as often a kitchen and a guest living room. The drainage of the basements is nearly impossible otherwise. Our tour took us to a viewpoint after visiting the mines, from which one could clearly see how the sea once shaped the current landscape and how fossils could turn into opals. Along the way, we saw countless emus and cows. Unfortunately, the photos taken through the bus windows during the bumpy ride over unpaved roads did not turn out sharp. Finally, we visited an underground Serbian Orthodox church. After that, we had the chance to visit a mine and try our hand at opal mining. We could use hammers to expand shafts, examine spoil, etc. Afterwards, we enjoyed an excellent lunch underground. The last stop was a visit to a current and a possibly 70-year-old underground apartment in a former mine. Today, heavy rainfall can also lead to flooding in the mines and underground apartments. This not only causes significant property damage but also saturates the sandstone, making it nearly impossible to dry out. As a concluding treat, we had the opportunity to take photos with our train, over 700 meters long, from a suitable spot in the evening and then enjoy a snack aperitif by a large fire. In the morning, it is only about 4°C and reaches only 18°C during the day, so it’s nice to stay warm by the fire for a while. The following dinner leads to the final night’s rest on the Ghan.