Hell on Earth
Posted by Melissa on | July 20, 2008
As we approach Coober Pedy the already arid, bare landscape becomes pocked with mounds of earth dug up from the depths and dumped. Those piles become more frequent and closer together as the winds blows and we near our destination.
A huge mining truck with what looks like a drum on a metal pole attached to its back marks the turn-off to Coober Pedy, the world’s largest opal field. We turn right off the Stuart optimistically and head into what can only be described as the wild west.
The main street is all gritty shop fronts smothered in dust and heavy security bars, 4WD vehicles, and tough looking guys in work boots and shorts. A couple of skinny dogs lurk around hopefully. We see our first groups of locals (the outback has been a very white place to date).
We choose our home - the Oasis Tourist Park (which must have been named with tongue firmly in cheek) - where we are promised a protected site, which turns out to be a dusty corner of a fenced off yard. The wind hampers our attempts to pitch the tent, whipping sandy dust into eyes and tugging at guy ropes. Erected, our little canvas home heaves and strains as the winds increase and we flee to eat John’s pizza and drink a beer to ease the shock of arriving in this feral frontier.
We take shelter in the park’s television room and are visited by men in tracksuits who come to check the footy scores and ask us about ‘our team’. I am told I musn’t have a team - obvious because of my ‘accent’. My itchy dislike for this place increases.
We survive the night. Wake up coated in a fine film of red dust. And resolve to leave as soon as we can. Git while the goin’ is good. But first we will join a tour of the town, which redeems it a fair bit. Our chirpy tour guide Rudi is a nuggety old Italian (retired) miner who explains mining techniques and equipment, how the town sources its water supply, the art of living in underground dugouts and playing golf on a grassless course and more. Ok, so there is more to this place than dirt, dust and holes in the ground.
We go. North. To wherever there is less wind and more of the colour green. We find it at Marla at a road house where we book a hotel room, cook dinner in the trangia in the bathroom, watch Doctor Who and le Tour on the telly and go for a quiet wander in the still evening to look at the stars.
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