Outback Adventure – Day 11- Rockets & Opals

I was awake at 4am and read for bit, then went back to bed, but didn’t really sleep well. The bed was rather hard and I got a sore back. Around 6am I got up again.

We were packed and on the way 9.15am. Lots of travelling to be done today.

The landscape changed pretty quickly and you could see the horizon on all sides. Very barren, sparce and red.

We stopped at Woomera where a lot of missile testing and development was done in the 1950s. We went through the museum which was pretty interesting.

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We stopped another hour or so up the road to have refuel and have lunch. I shared a vegetable burger with Poppy. It was nice to have something warm and tasty on yet another cold, windy day.

A few more hours drive and we arrived at Coober Pedy. A strange looking town, known as the opal capital of Australia. Many of the shops, homes and hotels are in underground caves.IMG_1510

After unhitching the van and checking into our hotel room we drove into the town and were lucky enough to visit the Old Timers Mine. We had to don miners hats and got to walk through the mine, which was all hand dug. We also got to see through a home, which was very interesting. The girls were amazed that people lived there – the last family moved out in 1990

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We also went to a nearby lookout area. It’s a bit like looking at a moonscape I think. The sun was setting and we had a great view.

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We headed back to the van park and Kevin & I went and ordered some pizza for dinner. It was quite a wait for it but we enjoyed watching the man making them. It was also very delicious so well worth the wait. After having dinner in Nan & Pops van we went back to our room and got into bed (no lounge here) to read.