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Coober Pedy - Edelsteine, die die Welt regieren
By Jan
Previous: Uluru - A rock that still impresses
In the morning we woke up pretty early to see the first sun rays hitting Uluru but as I said on my report for the previous day: I don’t see the difference. I was just confused and still sleepy. I would have liked to have some extra hours of sleep instead. However, we took of and started one of our longest stretches of that trip. It took us almost 10 hours to get to Coober Pedy and we were all just dead tired once we arrived. We only made stops when it was really necessary: toilet, fuel, state border.
One funny thing, that actually wasn’t that funny was that we had to surrender all vegetables and fruits at the state boarder. Once we crossed over from Northern Territory to South Australia there were several warnings that it is not permitted to import those into the state. That meant for us: taking a break, eat everything and continue.
The eat everything turned out to be more challenging than we expected. We had enough vegetables to survive the next two days and now we had to finish everything within half an hour. One after another gave up. However, somehow we did manage to finish everything.
On the road again: it was only a couple of more hours until we would arrive in Coober Pedy. Though, the city already was announced by several open mines in the landscape way before any civilization was in sight. Hills of sand at the side of the road and as far as we could see marked the spots where miners were digging for precious stones. What stones you ask? Well, Coober Pedy is renown for its opals. The town is the largest opal mine in the world.
Since it was already late when we finally arrived in our hostel we decided to postpone the exploration to the next morning.
We got up early, had breakfast, packed the car and went around town to see what this opal fuzz was all about. Until today I am really not a fan of that place. It feels all to dead and lifeless. Not many people are walking around and everything seems like it was build for the sole purpose to serve the miners temporarily but not lasting.
Next: Adelaide – A break, some sleep, repacking