Mildura to Coober Pedy

We left Mildura and headed to Renmark, hoping to find a nice spot to camp then have a Paddlesteamer cruise.  No luck, as the weather was still not good, so we carried on to a little town called Burra, where we camped at the local showground.  Good value, only $10 per night, with power, showers and toilets.  We'll have to look out for more of these on our travels - beats caravan parks hands down.

Bright and early next morning we packed up and headed for Port Pirie.  We dropped into the local tourist info centre and viewed the white pointer shark that had been caught locally - all 5.4metres of her!  Quite impressive.  The tourist info centres at each place we visit are a mine of information - most of the staff are really well informed about their area and have lots of tips for visitors - we love them.  We had lunch at Port Pirie at Barnacle Bill's, which was actually in an old church - quite different and a bit weird!


Then it was off to Port Augusta, where we thought we would do a cruise of the Spencer Gulf.  We booked into the Shoreline Caravan Park (Top Tourist) for 2 nights so that we could do our cruise the next morning and leave the following day.  Well, wasn't that fun? .... not!

The managers of the park had a large dog which barked very loudly on and off from about 8.30-10.30pm.  We went to bed around 10.30 as we were getting up early next morning to do our cruise.  The noise from the trains across the bay was loud and continuous most of the night.  And the managers of the caravan park had a party and made a lot of noise until they finished around 12.30am. 

We finally got to sleep, then at around 2.00am a group of  young people drove onto the beach area behind our camper trailer and had a party, complete with very loud music (with the CD getting stuck time and time again and making that awful ah-ah-ah noise) right near our camper.  This went on for around 2 hours.  I called the managers, who of course didn't answer their phone at that time of the morning.  I ended up calling the police,  and they eventually sent out a squad car to disperse the party.  I don't have any problems with young people having a good time, but if they had just moved their party 500m down the beach area and away from the caravan park, there would have been no problem.

So we finally managed to get some sleep from about 4.30am.  Our boat cruise was leaving at 8.30pm but after the awful night we had here, we ended up cancelling it and decided to move on to Coober Pedy, as we were not going to waste another night here in Port Augusta.

Trev went to the office to see if we could get a refund for the second night, and barely had he got the words out than the receptionist said 'We do not give refunds under any circumstances'.  So we were not very happy, and definitely not impressed with the Shoreline caravan park.

Back on the road, we headed for Coober Pedy.  The weather had definitely improved, and we had a good run, arriving at around 4.00pm.  The scenery was both boring and interesting - changing constantly, from totally flat nothingness to mountains (Flinders Rangers) and from dull uninteresting scrub to brilliant red soil and purple rocks. 

Coober Pedy (from Kuba Piti, meaning white man living in burrows) is a really interesting opal mining town of 3000, many of whom live in homes built underground.  We booked into the Stuart  Range Caravan Park, and also booked a 5-hour tour for the following day.  We had a look (and a drink) at the Desert Cave Underground Hotel which boasts the only underground Pokies in Australia.....  I tried my best, but didn't win anything.  

Next day, we did a bit of 'housework', eg washing, sorting out food supplies, checking bits and pieces on the car etc, then went for our tour at 1.30pm.  This took us for a tour around the town, then out to the local Golf Course - most interesting.  It's the only golf course in the world that has reciprocal rights with the Royal Saint Andrews Golf Course in Scotland! 
 
They don't have golfing 'greens' out here - they have a small patch of artificial turf for teeing off, then the actual holes are circles of black dirt!  It would be very had to actually see where your golf ball landed, cos the land and pebbles are much the same colour as the golf ball!

We went out to the opalfields, the dog fence (built to keep dingoes out) which is over 5,500k long, then out to the 'Breakaways' which is a series of broken outcrops of the Stuart Range.  They have been the backdrop to a number of movies such as Pitch Black, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, Red Planet etc.  Very scenic, great colours.  
         

Then it was on to the Umoona Opal Mine and Museum, which was really interesting.  It was built on a virtual rabbit warren of dugouts, with a display of a real underground 3 bedroom home and a former working mine.  And, of course, it had some wonderful opals for sale which my lovely husband wouldn't let me buy!!!  He said I could either upgrade to a caravan or buy an opal (such were the prices) - I hate it when he uses logic like that!

We finished off at the Serbian Underground Church which was just beautiful - carved out of the rock with beautiful  sculptures and leadglass windows - amazing.

Then it was back to our caravan park for a really good pizza and a bottle of wine.  Very nice.

We're off to William Creek tomorrow where we are contemplating taking a flight over Lake Eyre.  Stay tuned.....