8 nights in Coober Pedy – more than any other tourist ever?

We’ve been looking forward to getting to Coober Pedy for quite a while for a couple of reasons, firstly we have a solid roof over our heads for three nights, and secondly it was our last stop in South Australia before heading into the wilds of the Northern Territory.

The “cave” or “dugout” as the locals call it did not disappoint. There are quite a few of these homes in town and other premises too such as a couple of hotels and some churches, some dug out by hand, with the more recent ones cut out with machines. Ours was machine made, and was a little studio apartment with all the mod-cons. Being made of rock it was very insulated and quiet so we enjoyed being out of the cold for a bit.

We didn’t really do much for the three nights that we had the cave other than just enjoying our time in a building. It was a good place to get some work done, and the kids watched a bit of TV.

Our initial plan was to move on from Coober Pedy after those three nights but because getting a booking at Uluru was ridiculously difficult we had to extend our stay in Coober Pedy by another five nights to accommodate the available dates at Uluru. So down to the caravan park for us, but it wasn’t too bad as we’d booked into the Big 4 with a playground, pool and various other amenities.

We set up there (our shortest move – not even five minutes!) and got into the local attractions which are all centred around opal mining. There’s definitely not a lot of money in opals (or if there is those people have long since moved off to a coastal mega-mansion somewhere). The town is sadly in decline, but they’re a happy bunch and seem to have some kind of obsession with the opals. I suspect if you’ve been living in town for that many years chasing the big find then you do go a little loopy.

Things we saw in town include the museum and mine, the opal shops, the catacombs and an impressive Serbian church.  We visited the Old Timers’ museum which had an excellent example of an underground house from the 1960’s. Under that was a labyrinth of mines that we could wander around learning all about opal mining and the rise and fall of the town. Above ground we tried our hand at “noodling” which is basically ferreting around in a pile of dirt finding opals. We found enough to satisfy the kids, but not enough to move back into the cave.

Coober Pedy is also home to the last remaining drive in theatre in South Australia, so on the Saturday night we all piled into the car and went to the movies – quite a novelty to be able to do something where the dog was welcome!

On our second-last day in Coober Pedy the inevitable happened. It rained. Not just a little bit either, but a lot. Not only is that completely typical for us, but it is also quite annoying. The red dirt turns to mud that gets on everything and will not come off, and of course we’re camping on it, so it takes about five seconds to be through the tent and the car and all over the dog and us.

This also happened to be the day of the Breakaways fun run, a run/ride in the Breakaways Conservation area that we thought we’d go and check out. The plan had been to enter the kids in the 2.5km run, and Jim wanted to run the 5km run. It was about a 40 minute drive out there, with half of it on this awful red dirt that puts about 2 inches extra around your tyres and is pretty slippery. We got out there alright, but were already wondering what on earth we were doing as it was very, very cold, wet and muddy.

We arrived just in time to register Jim for the 5km run. The starting line-up was promising. There was Jim, a couple who were just planning to walk the whole way, and two kids full of bravado who believed it was going to be “so easy” and they were “just going to sprint the whole thing”. Surprising us all though, Jim came out on top in this illustrious group, winning the 5km race. It could have been that he was just so cold he wanted to get it over and done with?

While he was out there running around we enjoyed the free burgers and looked at the displays of local animals they had brought along (including a baby crocodile, which is most definitely not local). By the time Jim had recovered and had his burger they’d called the kid’s race off, mainly so we could all get out of there before the dirt road became impassable and we all got stuck. So we got out of there quick-smart and back to our relatively warm and dry tent.

It really is quite ridiculous that we experienced rain there. I spoke to one of the guys who worked at the campground and he said the way it rained was so unusual (steady rain all day long instead of just a short burst), and that it was the first time it had rained there since March. But it wouldn’t be our trip if we didn’t bring the rain with us, so I’m not sure why I’m surprised really.

Finally though, our eight nights was up and we were packed up and out of there pretty early. In the southern states, especially Victoria and Tasmania, the distances between places is much shorter, so we hadn’t really done a lot of big drives. As we get more remote, the drives get longer and the distances between places of interest greater, so we’ve got a few more one-night stays in our future as we break up long drives.

With that in mind, we headed off to the Northern Territory, leaving South Australia behind us. We stopped at the border for lunch and the obligatory photo at the “Welcome to the NT” sign, then continued onwards. We’d had a couple of options up the sleeve for free camps along the way if the driving got too much, but what we really wanted to do was get to Curtain Springs so as to only be an hour or so out of Yulara for the next day.

We managed that, and got there just in time to get a spot in the free camp that we could actually fit in. Being just a one-night stay we set up our minimal camp (just beds basically – not even a fresh set of clothes because we forgot to leave them out), had some dinner and had an early night, all ready for the next day and Uluru!