Living In A Cave

Friday 3 November

The beds were sooooo comfortable at the Oasis Appartments that it was very difficult to get up this morning. But we had to be ready to go to breakfast by 07.15 as the coach was taking us back to the Wadlata Centre (the museum we visited yesterday) to eat. The ladies there were waiting for us, and had all the cereals, fruit and toast laid out on a buffet table and as soon as we were all settled, they came round with plates of scrambled eggs, bacon and tomato for all who wanted something hot. There were even offers of seconds, but that was a step too far, even for Colin.

We then set out on another long day of driving - to Coober Pedy, an opal mining centre in the middle of the desert – Australia is so vast, if you want to get anywhere by road it is going to involve driving long distances. We had only traveled about 160 kms yesterday, but today’s total was likely to be nearer 600 kms. The road is known as the Stuart Highway, in recognition of the achievement of John Milward Stuart, who traveled from Adelaide to the Gulf of Carpentaria on the far north coast, and back again in the 1840’s, one of the first explorers of this region.

The scenery was flat, with scrubby bush as far as the eye could see, and the odd flat-topped mesa dotted around. The highway was absolutely straight – just going on for miles and miles without a bend, or a hill, or anything to deviate the tarmac course. The road surface looked shiny up ahead, as if there was surface water on the road, when in fact, it was just heat haze reflecting from the dark surface. Electricity wires stretch from pole to pole along the whole length of the road from Adelaide to Darwin, (thousands of kilometres) following the route of the road. (Communication lines are underground along the route). The poles are made of concrete and metal as wooden poles will be destroyed by the termites, which are prevalent in this area. There was very little traffic traveling in either direction, just the odd car and a few “road trains”, large American style trucks with three or four trailers behind – about 50 – 70 feet long, the larger ones pulling120 –150 tonnes.

We turned off for Woomera, an important space testing station of the 1960’s and 70’s. The area had been surveyed by Ian Blaidell, a Government surveyor and engineer in the 1940’s. He had been tasked with finding an area where rockets and other space related vehicles could be tested without any risk to residential or industrial areas. The Woomera site, offered a corridor of over 2,500 kms, all the way to the west coast, without any interruptions from habitation. There are only about 300 people living here in the town now, although testing by Australia, England and the US still continues, at times. There are two large display areas showing planes and rockets that took off from here.

Fifty kilometers up the road we came across Lake Hunt – a salt pan of brilliant white crystals, glinting in the sun. It measured about 110 square miles in size – this is small for Australia – and the salt crust was about 280mm thick. At this time of the year, the surface would contain a “lot” of moisture, but in March, after the extreme heat of mid-summer when temperatures reach between 40 and 50 degrees C, it would be safe to drive on (racing on some of the larger pans is a major event in March every year) and one even has a Yacht Club. (Donald Campbell, the only person in to hold both land and water speed records at the same time, used a salt pan area just to the north of here, in his attempt at the land speed record in the early sixties, and although he succeeded this record was overtaken again very soon after and he returned to England to continue his quest). The salt in this region is not commercially exploited. Australia does produce a large amount of salt for industrial use, but most of this comes from Western Australia where the lakes can be 6.metres thick and over 50,000 square miles in area. For a few kilometers around the pan, there was no vegetation at all – just rocky red earth, as the salt kills even the most hardy plants.

We traveled on and on across the huge flat plain until we came to “Woodies Bar”, a truck stop, miles from anywhere. We had “truckers” lunches of hot dogs, burgers, toasted sarnies or chips with tea before settling down in the coach to watch another film to pass the hours – this time it was “City Slickers”, and we could almost relate some of the action to activities on Australian “stations”. The main animals here are sheep, who roam through the salt bushes in search of something tasty – most of the cattle stations are north of here.

Around 16.00 we reached Coober Pedy, a small settlement boasting a population about 3,500 – this varies depending on who is supplying the information – the Government tax department record about 2,500 people, the town register records about 3,500, while the post office collects post for over 5,000 people. There are 47 different nationalities registered here, so there are many different cultures living and working together.

We arrived at our hotel, the Desert Cave Hotel, and we had been allocated an “underground cave room” – yesterday, all those who wanted to have a “cave room” went into a ballot and we had been one of the lucky (?) ones selected. The room was the same size as in most 4* hotels, with all the usual facilities, television, shower, hair dryer, etc, but there was no windows and the walls and ceiling were rock! When we opened the door, it was pitch black, you couldn’t even see a hand in front of you. It was quite a scary feeling, as your eyes couldn’t adjust to the darkness – there wasn’t even a pin prick of light. Having of loaded our luggage and surveyed our room, we had to quickly make our way back to the coach a have a tour of the town. Ruben relinquished his tour leader seat at front to Jackie, a local tourist guide, who had lived all her twenty something years in Coober Pedy.

This region was ‘discovered’ in 1915, when the Hutchinson family and friends were traveling north from Port Augusta to find gold. They got as far as this area and ran out of water. Everyone went off in search of sustenance, leaving the young son, Will, aged 15, in charge of the camp site. He was kicking around nearby, waiting for his parents to return, when he spied something sparkling in a variety of pinks, blues and greens, in the rocks. He dug out some chunks of this glittering rock and found a source of water beneath the surface. When the rest of the group returned empty handed, he proudly showed his father his find, and Coober Pedy was established as the major source of opals in the world, producing about 95% of the world’s supply today.

In the following years thousands made their way to this area, obtained licences for plots of land, and prospected for opals. Due to the extreme heat, the miners lived in caves dug into the sides, and below, the rocky outcrops, often extensions off the shafts where they were digging for opals – there have been many instances of people finding opals while excavating rooms for their dwellings. Many of the caves have been dug by hand with picks and hammers, although they have now developed a tunneling machine which makes the process much quicker, and, of course, there was always explosive. Jackie told us of how she and her family used to have ‘at-home’ evenings when they would all sit round and make bombs for her father to use during the next week! Today, almost the entire the population still live in these underground houses which are cheap to purchase – it costs around A$20,000 to dig out a house today - Jackie’s car cost considerably more than her house! Prospecting by the local folk is no longer allowed within the town limits, but they get round this by “extending” the number of rooms in their house! Some houses have as many as twenty rooms – large caverns dug out of this red and cream rock. Every room has a ventilation shaft, reaching straight up to ground level, which maintains an even temperature of 24 degrees C all year, irrespective of the temperature outside, and look like lots of silver periscopes sticking up through the ground.

As we toured round the red dusty roads, she pointed out the local sights – firstly, the roundabout in the centre of town – when it was constructed a few years ago, the local people didn’t know how to use it – which way to go round, or even if they should ride over the top!), the school (takes all ages from 5 to 16 and has about 30 – 40 students), the college (where you can take a university course in opal mining), the hospital (if any serious treatment is required, or a baby is to be delivered, patients are flown to a hospital in Port Augusta where the facilities are more modern), the dentist (who comes to town for one day every six weeks – you just hope you don’t get toothache with five weeks to wait), the two supermarkets (who receive fresh produce every Thursday by truck) and the local churches. The first church was built in 1964 and catered for all denominations, but is now a Catholic church. The priest covers an area from the borders of New South Wales and Queensland in the east, the Northern Terrritory border in the north, the Western Australia border in the west, and down almost to Woomera in the south – an area 5,000 square miles. He has 28 families on stations within this area that are catholic and he tries to visit each one at least once a fortnight. The church was a cave of course, dug into the hillside, so had the red and cream rock walls. The altar was covered in a dark red cloth, and there were many gold and ivory icons and statues around – it had a real feeling of sanctuary. As you walked out, a brilliantly coloured stained glass cross was illuminated by the sun shining through. There was also the new sports field with ‘grass’ (!) and a large open square of bare earth with a big screen, where they show drive-in movies – one was scheduled to be shown tonight – an Australian film called “Opal Dreaming” – and all the locals would be going, as it was shot around Coober Pedy and most of them had appeared in it. This area has been used for filming many major films, such as Mad Max and Diesel.

After the tour we were shown a film about how opals are made, and the history of the area, followed by a short demonstration of how to cut and polish the rock into a usable gem for jewellery. Of course, there was then the obligatory visit to the shop, where they tempted you to purchase single, double and triple opals (singles being the best and thickest stone, as the doubles and triples are separate layers of opal “glued” together. Black opals are by far the most expensive.

We climbed to the top of the mesa which our hotel was dug out of, where we could survey the whole town. It looked like a road builders temporary camp – in fact many of the residents only stay a few months to see if they can find their fortune, and then leave to try elsewhere. The area surrounding the town is covered with cone-shaped heaps of soil and rock known locally as ‘mullick’ heaps – waste from the mining excavations underground – which vary in size from small ‘sandcastles to large cones, about ten feet high. They are different colours too, as the rocks underground change with the minerals contained in them. Opals are formed from silica, washed into pockets within the limestone rocks when the area was under water for thousands of years. As the waters receded, a great artesian well was formed underground and the silica hardened between the layers of rock within the well. Opal is usually found in bands running horizontally through the rock. The land is all owned by the Government, but plots of 50 x 50 metres or 50 x 150 metres can be leased outside the town, for a month, three months or even a year at a time. If the plot is successful and opals are found, the lease can be extended while mining continues. This is why the population is so transitory and there is such a mixture of cultures. People come for a short while to seek their fortune, and if not successful, move on.

Dinner was at the hotel, and for the fourth evening in a row I had steak – I had been looking forward to trying Australian beef and so far each steak has seemed tastier than the previous evening, and this was the case tonight – probably because there was no so much of it – and it was cooked perfectly “blue”.

I think some of the late nights at the early part of the week are catching up with us, so we had yet another earlyish night and I am writing this blog tomorrow morning, whilst traveling on the coach. I will try and publish the enties for the past few days soon, but the connections are not so good out here – we cannot even get a connection on the mobiles. But we will keep trying, and hopefully will be more successful at Ayers Rock.