Coober Pedy

Day 4

We left our campsite near Uluru to head south to Coober Pedy. We got up at 4:30 am, packed our swags and hit the road. It was a warmer night which was great. Most of us slept for the first part of the drive. We then played a game later on while everyone was awake of looking for abandoned and crashed card in the ditch. Each team would get a point per car. All together we saw about 45-50 cars in the 200km section. Our team ended up seeing the most, which I attribute to my farmer vision ;). The whole drive was 800km.

When we got to Coober Pedy, we checked in to our hotel which is underground. About 50% of Coober Pedy is built underground. The homes are called dugouts and Coober Pedy is aboriginal for White man's burrow. We got to go on a tour of a underground house as well as an old opal mine. The house had all the amenities of a normal house but built into the rock. It was pretty neat. The mine was very cool as well, with part of it being dug out by hand and part of it by modern machines. We even got to see opal still in the rock wall in the mine.

After the mine, we walked to a gallery up the road. It had opal pieces and aboriginal art. The art was pretty amazing and I got a few pieces of opal in rock for myself. At the back of the gallery is a kangaroo orphanage. The owners rescue joeys and raise them until they are ready to be put in a sanctuary. The kangaroos are very friendly and we got to feel them. The one kangaroo kept licking my hand and coming over for scratches. Their fur is so soft. We also got to see a young Joey get bottle fed and then hop around before getting back into the animal bag they had for him. He was very adorable. They are pretty amazing people to help the kangaroos. Afterwards we had a pizza night and got to sleep inside where it was warm.