COOBER PEDY 9 – 10 OCTOBER
Saturday morning we decided to follow the first few stages of the Coober Pedy Heritage Trail.
THE OLD CEMETERY
Our first stop was the First Cemetery. Our guide referred to the the “colourful account of the first burial in 1921”. I was concerned to see a discarded wig that had blown against the cemetery fence, and wondered whether the owner was unaware of their loss.
The Greek Orthodox Church of St Nicholas was next door to the cemetery. A resident flock of crows flew above us, their mournful cawing the only sound we could hear.
THE OLD WATER TANK
Coober Pedy’s water supply has always been a precious and rare commodity. A desalination plant now processes the town’s supply, however back in 1921 the Government established a water reserve and built a water tank to collect what little and unreliable rainwater that fell.
JEWELLERS SHOP OPAL FIELD
This is an example of one of the early opal fields, where surface opals called ‘floaters’ were found. It is now a public noodling area. While we were there a young boy, who was noodling with his dad, showed us a sample of some of the small rocks with bright coloured streaks of opal in them that he had found. All I could find during my short attempt at noodling, before the flies drove me mad, were rocks.
LOCK UP AND OLD DUGOUT
The old Lockup, standing high on a hill, is claimed to be Coober Pedy’s first building. Nearby is a roughly hewn dugout from the early days of mining.
The underground Catholic Church, St Peter and Paul is an amazingly peaceful and beautiful retreat. The first photo shows how it looked originally before the rock facade was added. The photo directly underneath it show the same area as it is now. Inside it was so cool and silent. Before I left,/ I lit a candle for Tony.
THE BIG FLAT OPAL FIELD
This field was considered the centre of the old diggings. It was worked from 1915 to the early 1980’s. It now seems to be threatened by the spread of ‘suburbia’. Norm was more thrilled to discover an old Dodge truck, which reminded him of one of his father’s work trucks.
SEVENTEEN MILE OPAL FIELD
There are many areas around town where new mining machines and techniques are taking over from the old hand hewn tunnels. We drove through part of this newer field on the way to the golf course. The huge piles of dirt and rock mullock heaps were no where near as picturesque as the regular small cones of white, red or brown dirt and rocks piled beside the hand cut mine shafts of the individual opal miners with their hand tools.
COOBER PEDY GOLF COURSE
This club, which was developed by a group of golf mad opal miners back in 1976, proudly boasts of its black greens and white fairways. There is alway the chance of finding an opal whilst playing a round of golf on this unique course.
There is a funny tale about how this course became the only course in the world to be granted reciprocal rights with the mighty St Andrew’s club in Scotland.
/https://www.espn.com/golf/story/_/id/13173734/st-andrews-kooky-deal-opal-fields-golf-club
‘Green’ 
Road up to Club House 
Clubhouse 
View from Clubhouse 
Fairway 
THE BREAKAWAYS, DUST STORMS AND HOWLING GALES
Although the weather was not looking promising in the late afternoon, we decided to take a chance on catching a breathtaking sunset out at the Breakaways/Painted Desert/Kanku…
When we paused beside the Dog Fence to take a photo, the wind was blowing in such strong gusts that it was hard walk against it. Large clouds of sand and grit were blown around us, rasping against our skin like sandpaper. Clumps of dry desert plants were tumbled against the fence.
Huge dust storms were blowing across the desert by the time we reached the stunningly beautiful white/orange/red/brown structures of the Breakaways.
Our hopes of a striking sunset experience were dashed, however we stayed awhile to explore and admire the spectacular scenery in the dramatic atmosphere created by the wind and stormy clouds. Huge clouds of dust were rising on the horizon and so we made a dash for ‘home’ in case they moved in on us.
By the time we reached camp, it had started to rain. During the night there was a most impressive electrical storm. Each clap of thunder seemed to roll on for such a long time across the sky; echoing and growling like some angry mythological beast. I counted more than 10 claps of thunder in succession.
THE MORNING AFTER THE STORM
We woke to a cold, windy damp Coober Pedy morning. It was time for us to pack up and continue our journey south west to Woomera.
ON THE ROAD 