Oh for goodness sake!

Well bugger. Its been an eventful day today. I woke at about 0330 this morning to an aborigine youth helping himself to my stuff. I disturbed him going through a bag that I had accidentally left outside my swag but under the flap. He got away with a couple of bits, including my wash kit, towel, manky old joggers, a jar of Vegemite and most annoyingly of all, my only spare pair of knickers ( clean). And the bit of paper with the loo code written on it. I thought I was dreaming when I saw him - cheeky git was right next to my head - but he freaked when he realised I'd seen him and ran off, jumped the perimeter fence, and was away.

When it got light, I had a scout around and found my shoes, the Vegemite and radio, and my wash kit. But he kept the towel, my knickers and the loo code, as well as some other bits. I hope that the next wichety grub he eats makes him very sick and that his walkabout ends with a good hiding from someone. Little bastard.

So this morning, I had to speak to the manager, who gave me a room for the night free of charge, then the police, who turned out to be Kelly, an ex County Durham police officer, and then go on a tour of Coober Pedy with Rudi, a 79 year old Austrian who has mined opals in Australia for 51 years. But I managed all of that, and to go shopping ( for a towel and some food), fossick for opals ( found two), ride around Coober taking pics,  have a swim, and gossip to another German lady from Hamburg all before 1600hours.

Kelly, ex County Durham Police

My room

Things I learnt about Coober today are:

• Kupa Piti (Coober Pedy) means ' white man's burrows' in the local aborigine language and refer to the dugouts that the early ( 1920s)  miners were digging to live in and mine opals.

• Opal is found only about 30 m below the surface

• The only use for opal is still jewellery and this kept the market small as there was no industrial use
• You can stake a claim by buying a prospectors licence for $50.00, nailing four tags to four posts then pegging out your claim. The claim has to be reregistered within a year or you lose it.
• Once a hole is dug, you are not allowed to infill it. As a consequence, there are many holes everywhere, all about 22m deep and if you fall down one, you will die

• Noodling has nothing to do with cooking but is the term for fossicking through the spoil heaps to find missed opals

• There are no mining companies in Coober. All mining is done by private individuals
• Coober has an 18 hole golf course which is affiliated to St Andrews in Scotland. The putting greens are all black as oil is mixed with the sand to keep it flat and from flying away

• If you build a dugout, you have to lay a tiled or concrete floor because the sandstone in which the opals are found is soft and wear and tear will turn it to dust, and you have to lacquer the ceiling to stop dust falling off
• the temperature in a dugout is always 24ºc
• There are four underground churches in Coober, the biggest is the Serbian church and it took 4 weeks to excavate, and opened in 1992

• The youngest JP in Australia lived in one dugout and then sold it to a man who lived in it for 59 years. However, that man  never meant to stay in Coober Pedy but only did because his car broke down and he couldn't find the parts to get it going again.

• A row of hills (The Breakaways) which are opal less are a few kms from Coober and the plain in between is the scene for parts of many movies including - Priscilla and  Mad Max - both of which were also filmed in Broken Hill
• The local radio station is called 'Dusty Radio"

• Waste water from houses goes into bore pits and gradually filters away but the buildings on the main street ( Hutchison Street) have their water treated by the sewerage plant and the cleaned water is used to water the school playing field and the footy oval

• There is only a primary school in Coober; any secondary education has to be obtained in Adelaide
• its two hours by light plane to Adelaide
• There was no water in Coober until the 1930s then somebody discovered an underground spring and its been Ok ever since
• There is some very wacky installation art here

• There are scrap cars everywhere