Day 52: Sat 14 Jul – Coober Pedy

4 (-4) - 17 deg C 

We toured Coober Pedy today. First up we went out on the bikes in a very icy wind so finished with a coffee in an underground cafe – Crystal Cafe. It was really nice and warm down there. There is also an underground opal display, opal shop, opal cutter and a bar and restaurant. We traversed the tunnels with the displays of opal mining history before heading back to the vans to change our clothes to go for a walk. By this stage it had warmed up only slightly.

 We did the underground bookshop, Umoona opal mine and museum, the Opal Cave, Josephine's Gallery and kangaroo orphanage, the Big Winch, underground St Peter and St Paul's Catholic Church, and finally the IGA for mainly fruit and vege. It was back home for lunch. 

After lunch we had the delightful task of emptying the toilet cartridges. We then had a little snooze before heading off in the truck to see the Breakaways (an ancient inland sea of Moon Plains), the Dog Fence, and the Mica Fields. We took our wine and a few nibbles and watched the sun go down which was when the temperature plummeted so we headed home. 

Opal Cave

Painted tyres on our morning ride

Desert Cave

Desert Cave - above and below ground

Display in Desert Cave

Model of a square tunnelling machine in Desert Cave

Makes sense

Umoona Cave

Inside Umoona Cave

Inside Umoona Cave

Umoona Cave

Top of Umoona Cave

Some of Cooper Pedy from the top of Umoona Cave

An old spaceship left from filming one of the space movies

Josephine's Galleery

Killer caves

Gives new meaning to 'picket fence'

Underground house

An odd art feature

The underground Comfort Inn

A peice of old machinery

Cooper Pedy drive-in picture theatre

The Big Winch, the old winch (foreground) was broken in the 1986 cyclone

St Paul and St Peter's Catholic Church

Inside the Church

Cooper Pedy Cenotaph

The vast desolation surrounding Copper Pedy

The mica fields

Mica

A tiny portion of the Dog Fence

Various pictures of the Breakaways

Mornos venue