Day 10 & 11  Coober  Pedy  "White Man in a Hole"

If Andamooka is like Park City in 1960, Coober Pedy is like Park City in 2011- sort of, but a lot smaller Lots of tourists, lots of opal shops, lots of tourist buses. But beneath that façade still exists a core of true miners, and we met a few of them.

Coober Pedy is truly  in the outback. In the local aboriginal language, Coober Pedy is translated “the white man in the hole”. And there are thousands of opal prospect holes around the town.  There is also quite an aboriginal presence in the town. They share a lot of  the same economic and social problems as do our reservation folks.

About half of the town lives underground. Our hotel was tunnels and rooms hewn into the side of the hill.

We visited a working mine. We were the only two on the tour, so we got to do and see a lot. The guide taught us to divine for opal seams (yes, it did work) and ride the hoist and dig the opal seam.  We did find a bit of color.

The Coober Pedy opal beds are sedimentary, about 120 million years old. Many of the opals are fossils. Here are a few examples of fire opal fossils. Snails, mussels, clams , bellemites. All of thgese have really good fire. The one at the center left we found.

After a whole day and street of opals, we found a shop that had some really good aboriginal paintings by local artists. Actually, it was a pretty nice opal shop, but the owner/miner has a lot of aboriginal friends and supports their arts and sell their works at very reasonable prices, well below the tourist shops. These are not prints, but originals on canvas.

In another store, we found a whole room of very nice digereedoos; but these are very , very expensive- but cool to look at.

All in all, it was a pretty enjoyable day. We saw and did a lot of neat things, and also met a lot of neat people.

Day 8-10 Into the Outback

On Saturday, we left the comfort of the city and fine hotels and headed north, leaving the ocean for the outback. It is a long and lonely road, not a lot of traffic. It very much reminds us of any long lonely road in the great basin But look at the trucks- they are called road trains, and you can see why.

We have seen quite a few  emus and kangaroos.

We arrived at Andamooka, an old opal mining town, nothing touristy, simply an old dying mining town, think Park City in the 1950 time frame.

 The “Welcome” sign is a pretty cool collection of large “painted lady” opals. They are called painted ladies because they are really beautiful on the surface, but only paper thin, with worthless sandstone underneath, just like a “painted lady”.

Opal was discovered here in about 1931. At the top of the rush in the 1960’s, there were about 3000 folks here, but not there are only about 300.   The landscape looks like a moonscape. Maybe that is why Mad Max from Thunderdome was filmed here.

They have preserved the original “Main Street”, a row of dugouts.

 We met some of the old time miners (Murray’s partners), they showed us around. We worked a mine for most of the day, and didn’t find much of anything, but today, while “noodling” the dumps, we found a few really nice pieces. One of them will be worth several hundred when cut. Cyndy found a particularly pretty opal.

We went underground into an old mine to see how it was done. There aren’t many active operations now.
Andamooka was a really pleasant stay, nice folks, and a few opals to boot.  On to Coober Pedy tomorrow.

Day 5

We are now in Adelaide and were greeted by Murray and Janice Willis.  They took us touring along Victor Harbor and other seaside sites. 

We ate lunch at a quaint little seaside cafe and had the best calamari we have ever eaten.

After that we went whale watching from the beach and saw two pods of southern right wales. Too far out to photgraph, but what a neat sight to watch.

Overall it was a really relaxing day, like we had our own personal and close tourguide. Everyone down here is very friendly.



Day 4

Our last day in Sydney was spent doing laundry, shopping and a half evening at the opera.

This is Market City also known as Paddy's Market which was located next to China Town. We went crazy shopping for souvenirs and a few other needed items.  The best find was the Chinese message booths located throughout the complex, they worked us over.  And of course there was an opal dealer.  Dun dun dah...did we buy opal ?  Just you wait and see.

 After a full day of shopping it was time to prepare for the opera.  It was raining for the first time since our arrival and we took a cab over to the opera house.  It looked stunning in the evening lights as we approached the complex.  Unfortunately, after the 2nd Act of the opera we decided to leave.  We didn't appreciate the partial nudity and frankly the singing was not that great.  The only highlight was seeing the beautiful opera house.

Our lesson of the day was "always look in your laundry bag before you leave the cleaners". 

Day 3 October 5 The Blue Mountains- Where the Red Fern Growws

Today we escaped  Sydney and went on a small group hiking tour of the Blue Mountains. What a beautiful place. As you can see from the photo, the Blue Mountains is actually a high sandstone plateau covered in eucalyptus forest and cut with deep water worn canyons.The walls are well over a thousand feet high


This is Bridal Veil Falls, a 1000 foot high fall with a hanging garden the full height.




We went on a good hike on the National Trail. Lots of ledges and hanging gardens to walk through.



At the end of the day, we enjoyed the cliffside view.

Now THIS is Australia.

Waterfalls abound. Some walls are fully covered with hanging gardens

Day 2 Around Sydney

On our way to the ferry, we saw a pretty good street entertainer and took a little video.

To get around the harbor, people take ferries or water taxis

We eventually ended up at the Hard Rock, but didn't eat there. Food here is more expensive than we've seen it anywhere in the world.

But the highlight of the day, and maybe one of the best of the trip, was a short visit the National Opal Museum. It is actually a store (and there are way too many opal stores here, we've simply stopped going in them). Bu this one is different. One part in the back is the jewelry store, and pretty nice. But the front part is a museum of opals taken to a whole new level. It is a phenomenal collection of black opal fossils- not just a few shells, but crinoids and starfish and logs and sheets of clams and dinosaur teeth and ribs and claws and most of all, a nearly fully reticulated pleiosaur ( a whale  like dinosaur that returned to the  sea about 100 million years ago). This skeleton is 6 feet long and made entirely of fire opal. What a national treasure.

day 1

Our flight was LONG but was fairly comfortable.  Then we arrived at our hotel late Monday morning(yes, I said Monday because we don't know what happened to Sunday) and were very pleased with this stunning location.  This is the view near our hotel on Pier 1 located on the beautiful Sydney Harbor.  And our hotel has utilized parts of the original pier.

Then we walked around the area known as The Rocks which was the first "white" man settlement.  The convicts built this area in the 1840s out of hewn sandstone rocks, and many or part of the original buildings are still here(look behind me).  But we were thrilled when we found a kebab shop - yum.

We found an awesome didgeridoo shop called www.spiritgallery.com.au if you want to check it out.  I wish I had a picture of Dad playing with Reno who was a very experienced musician.   Reno shared with how these instruments are made as well as many playing tips and techniques.