June 10th-13th, 2011- Riba's Underground Camping- Coober Pedy

Friday June 10th saw us head North on the Stuart Highway to Coober Pedy. We stopped at Lake Hart for Photo op and Sandra drove with caravan for first time. Did very well and gave me a break for an hour or so. We arrived around lunch and got setup at Riba's just south of Coober Pedy. A very unique place set in the middle of Opal mines. The office and TV room were underground as well as a number of areas for tents to setup. They have an old mine below that we did a tour of Friday evening. Quite interesting. We had a covered, power site and had full facilities. Special note of the Thunder Dunny which you used between 10am-1pm while toilet blocks were being cleaned. As we had arrived in good time we did some sightseeing in the afternoon. Went to a couple of underground churchs (Serbian and Catholic) which were very interesting (Serbian is the best). We then toured Faye's underground home which was amazing. Guided tour by the people living there. Several rooms including underground pool and bar room. Recommended! Also toured Desert Caves underground Hotel complex. Very high end hotel and many expensive underground shops etc.

Saturday morning we drove out to the Dog Fence, Moon Plains, and Breakaways! What a wonderful trip. Like many things we have seen you are driving along thinking what are we going to see when all of a sudden the Breakaways appear out of nowhere and are fantastic. Beautiful colours! Many, many photos! Returned to campground for lunch and then went into town and did a tour of the Old Timers Mine. Very imformative and entertaining. Toured the old mine, underground home attached, then had a live demonstration of some Opal Mining equipment. Also included a museum section with many old artifacts re mining history. We also visited the lookout with the Big Winch. Took a wrong turn there and met an enterprising Oriental man with a lookout and the Small Winch. Gave us a bit of a tour including his home but turned out he wanted to sell us some Opals. Funny!

Sunday was an easy day with lots of rest and relaxation. Had a big breakfast and girls did some cleaning. Guys did some minor maintenance on caravans and vehicles. Stocked up on water and had a lovely baked Chicken dinner.

Monday the Ransleys and Bewells got up early to travel out to the Breakaways again for sunrise. A very early and very cold experience! Beautiful colours again. We returned to campground or breakfast before Stephen and I tackled the world famous Cooper Pedy Golf Course. What an experience! They supplied us each with tees, 3 balls, and a small grass piece of carpet as part of our $10 greens fee. On request the lady threw in an extra 6 balls at no extra charge. On the recommendation of the lady at the Old Timers Mine we left Stephens golf clubs in the car and used a set of rentals. Wise choice as the course is beyond tough on equipment. There was also no danger that we would try and steal the rental clubs which are left unattended at the course. Greens are black dirt and the rest is desert with clumps of rocks and tufts of wild grass and various dessert vegetation. To make it easier it was very windy and black flies were in abundance. We quit after nine tough holes. I don't think we would have survived the second nine as was a very long course. I proved better suited to the tough conditions and brought home a memorable victory. We spent the latter afternoon preparing for the next leg of our journey.

Coober Pedy is a very interesting place which should be experienced. Wouldn't want to live there but well worth the visit. The Breakaways are amazing and should be on your must see list.