Coober Pedy

DAY 5 – COOBER PEDY

Coober Pedy is a much smaller town than I had anticipated; less than 2000 people, of which 15% are Aboriginal.  We had a beautiful relaxing morning – our first morning without having to move out!!  Hubby cooked up a beautiful breakfast of bacon and egg muffins on our little BBQ plate.  We then went into town and visited the St Peter and St Paul Catholic Church, which was the first church built underground in Coober Pedy.  As with all traveling, we managed to meet two couples there.  One was a solicitor who has a brother who trains horses in Mornington.  David loved telling him that he gets caught behind Patrick Carey Racing Stables van every morning on Racecourse Road on the way to work!  The other gentleman was a Clerk of Courts at Moe Magistrates’ Court for many years, and although was not there when I worked there, knew many of the people I worked with, and in fact saw my old boss, Mark Woods, at a funeral recently!!  Such a small world.

We then managed to do some opal buying, before heading into the Coober Pedy Hotel for an underground look at the history of Coober Pedy and the sealing by 1987 of the Stuart Highway.  Thank God we are not traveling on dirt roads!!  Then over to Josephine’s Gallery and Kangaroo Orphanage for some joey feeding and a great talk by the guy who runs it.  Of course this was a highlight for the kids!

The afternoon was spent at the Old Timer’s Mine where we had a demonstration of some mine equipment, and Bridget almost lost her arm up the blower!!  The mine display was excellent, and the kids loved seeing how the miners climbed in and out of the mines.  The “dugout”, or underground home, was just fascinating.  It was largely built by Ron and Jenny Gough, including a bedroom for their daughters which Ron dug by hand.  The even had an ensuite and great kitchen area and lived there until 1990.  The kids were just upset that apparently they had the same spice rack as we do at home so they immediately demanded that I get rid of it “because it is too olden days”!!  We learnt about Mrs Halliday, the first miner’s wife to arrive at Coober Pedy in 1921.  Mam, what a woman!!  Not the life for me!  Women today are much too soft!!  It is enough of an adventure for me to do what I am doing now with all the creature comforts that we have.  She did it by coach with hardly any food!

Our good friends, the Parsons sent us a photo of their new car, complete with smashed windscreen so when they limped into Coober Pedy it really WAS time for a quiet ale or two.  This was really needed when hearing about the mice plague they dealt with at William Creek.  Thank God we decided NOT to see Lake Eyre full for the first time in 25 years!  Was a great night, swapping stories and hearing about their nightmare night on Lake Eyre.  Kids had a ball and had traditional Aussie BBQ and beer.