deantrekaroundoz2012: Day 105. Saturday 6th October Coober Pedy

Windy overnight, reminded us of the night in Townsville! Jason & Leanne got up overnight to pull awning in and check for loose objects. Then the smoke detector in the camp kitchen opposite our site went off again, & Jason went over with the broom to disable it again... (as it had been playing up that evening as well)....Arghhhh!!! We went into town centre to get some provisions & called into the visitor centre, also had a look at an underground church. We took the girls to do some "noodling" ( prospecting for opal) in the Jewellers Shop Road site. This proved to be lots of fun, the girls got very excited when they found a thin thread in a rock....after this we went to the Desert Cave Underground Hotel to have a look at some real opals and have a coffee underground!! Then it was off to a local art gallery where the owner took in orphaned kangaroos and conducted tours of their mine below / behind the gallery. We fed the kangaroos and watched as the youngest Joey was hand fed its bottle. The kangaroos here were all either injured by cars, and nurtured back to health or rescued from some of the locals dinner tables!!!!! We had lunch in an underground cafe', a unique experience.After this we went to a local underground house which was about 18 squares of house including an indoor pool! The house was mostly dug out by its original owner by hand and took 10 years to complete. It keeps a constant 23 degrees all year round, despite the outside temperature in summer reaching around 50 degrees!! Last of all we drove out to The Breakaways, which are a colourful arid area of land, of what remains of the inland sea 70 million years ago. The colors of the rock and sand formations were amazing, you could see why this site has been included in several films over the years...( eg: Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, Priscilla, Queen Of The Dessert.) we also drove out to the Dingo fence which runs from Qld all the way through to Eucla on the Great Australian Bight. It is the longest fence in the world, built to keep the dingos North of the fence so as to stop sheep attacks down South. After a full days sightseeing we headed back to our van to have some dinner with our neighbours and pack up ready for a big days driving tomorrow.