Message Stick

We celebrated our first wedding anniversary in style at Coober Pedy; living inside an old opal mine shaft. No, we haven’t resorted to squatting just yet, this is how the residents here survived the intense heat by living underground where it remains relatively cool. This place is famous for producing 70% of the world’s opals and is a free for all, so anyone can come and have a go at mining.  The result is a very multicultural society with over 30 nationalities, but the downside is that as far as the eye can see there are mounds of dirt where everyone has tried their luck.  We visited a great Serbian underground church, but nothing was a patch on our lovely little pad that we splashed out on for our anniversary treat. We had a great time fossicking in the day, braving the biblical plagues of flies that have covered most of the outback we’d seen so far. At night we cooked our steaks on a roaring log fire under an amazing blanket of stars and toasted surviving our first year in tact!

The drive to Uluru was a killer and we felt quite insignificant arriving at the camp site being the only little car in a mass of 4×4 trucks. We were anticipating great things from the “resort” we’d seen advertised but it was basic beyond belief, we couldn’t even boil water for our emergency pot noodles.  Uluru at sunset was beautiful despite some clouds and the following day, along with our entourage of flies we explored its different faces. Unlike some ignorant prats we did not climb the rock in respect of Aboriginal culture.  Leaving Uluru we made a brief stop at the Olgas, but after Mark had to spit out several flies we headed back to the car for the drive to Kings Canyon.  He was thankful he didn’t swallow the fly as swallowing a massive Aussie spider to go after it wasn’t a very inviting prospect.

We got up at the crack of dawn, when the flies and temperature we more bearable, to take a walk through King’s Canyon. The scenery was spectacular with deep gorges, pancake rocks, sheer cliff edges and amazing views of the surrounding desert. Knackered and very sweaty we arrived back at the car and continued on through to outback heading for Alice Springs.