Coober Pedy to the NT border

Coober Pedy felt like the real start of the holiday - with new sights to explore and two nights instead of one before we had to pack up and move on. Luxury! Although the caravan park was pretty awful - sites like carparks packed in together and nothing green to be seen. Showers cost 20c per three minutes and it was SO cold you nearly froze to the spot when the water switched off. Still - I shouldn't complain. Water is very precious in CP and there's no greenery anywhere in the town. It was fascinating, though, and we learned all about opal mining (of course!) as well as the amazing natural rock formations called The Breakaways just outside of town. Noodling was a hit with the girls, who tried very hard to make our fortune for us in the rubble pit.

On Wednesday night we looked for somewhere to eat out, seeing it was the night before our 10th wedding anniversary. We checked all three possible eating places in town before selecting what turned out to be everyone else's choice too - John's Pizza Bar - where the wait for our meals we were told would be up to an hour (and that was if we didn't order any pizzas)! We passed the time with a "quiz" on all the things we'd learned so far, and it was very entertaining. The family at the table next to us played Uno. Lovely food - even Tahlia ate everything.

On Thursday we joined a tour of "Tom's working mine" with the miner (whose name was Jimmy). He gave a vivid and intimate account of the realities of a modern opal miner's life now. It's not enviable, that's for sure! And now it's almost impossible for the small miner, because the cost of explosives has gone from $90 per day to $1000 per day - because of all the new restrictions since Sept 11. By the time we left Coober Pedy it was lunchtime, so we pressed on to Marla where we spent a completely uneventful night if you don't count the girls being fascinated by the code panel to open the toilet door.

From Marla we headed north to the border, and then turned west to Uluru. There was great excitement when we crossed the border, and lots of hopping to and fro across an imaginary line between the states. We've now been on the road for just over a week, travelled about 1700km and spent $700 in fuel. We've got the set-up/pack-up routines worked out pretty well and found out a few things about the van - like what the mysterious little switch in the front cupboard is for (that could have saved us running out of power on the first night!). The girls have settled on their positions in bed and don't argue too much about it (except for Kendall shouting at them in her sleep). Next stop - The Rock!

Captions for pictures:

- Highlight of the caravan park was the giant chess set

- We drove some way along the dog (dingo) fence, which stretches 5,300km across three states

- Coober Pedy with its underground houses

- The Breakaways at sunset

- The girls noodling for opals

- Tahlia doing some (unpaid) work for Jimmy the miner