Part 2 of report

If you have read any of our prior Australia or New Zealand trip reports, you will note that we usually drive the trip. This time we took an escorted bus tour. We knew some of the shortcomings in advance, but had a number of reasons we did not drive to Darwin (up from Adelaide). First we were concerned about the roads. Turns our that most of our trip was paved. The sections that were unpaved could have been driven, although a bit bumpy, or one could have missed out on some of the areas. Our second concern was the road trains (Semis with up to 4 trailers). They are huge, but the drivers are much more considerate and try to give you enough road to stay on the pavement. Our third concern was remoteness. This is and was a real concern. Services (anything) are often hundreds of Kilometers apart. The final material concern was the length of the drive. It was long. Distances between "good" places to stay were very long. Finally, the road is long, with little traffic. It is easy to fall asleep. It is interesting country for awhile, but then becomes one big scrub/dessert. With a driver, you can look for the interesting things and take a nap if your wish (I stayed glued to the road to make sure the driver was okay) Most of the trip was made on the left side of the road, but once the drive went on the right for a K or so! Did I mention that there were no other cars for hours on occasion!

We met at the hotel. There were 21 of us to start, plus the tour director and driver. The bus sat 46, so we had plenty of room. Generally, the passengers were an older lot. We at 60, were fairly common. A few people were younger, but mostly a bit older. Surprisingly we had a number of foreigners. Donna from Texas (oil woman). A couple from Colorado (retired). Bobbie and Bonnie friends from Long Beach (CA). With us, that was a third from USA! Oh, then there were the Kiwi's! Lyle and his wife, were great company. We talked with them some of our earlier trip to South Island. A couple from outside Sydney, Fay and Bill were taking their first real vacation ever! Nice people, our age. Another couple, from Brisbane, David and Jennie were great travel mates. He is in the tourist industry and she is a travel agent for a credit union. You get the idea. A small group gets to know each other some on the bus. Bill, Fay, David and Jennie got off in Alice Springs and returned on the Ghan.

The tour director was a German lady, with a heavy accent. She was an intrepreter for APT. Unfortunately, she was hard to understand and a bit abrasive. It is a very difficult job. The driver was great. Always kept on the left side of the road (well except for me) and never passed unless it was VERY safe. A credit to APT, although he is a contract long haul driver.

The first day of the trip ended in Griffith. The day was long and almost boring! Fortunately, the driver had a lot to say and kept people interested. Forget about seeing any wild life on this part of the journey, except for the birds and a bit of road kill. The Bagtown Inn Motel is not the Ritz, but we were made welcome and served a fine dinner. Veal, chicken or fish were the choices. Laundry was available, but no time was left, except to get some sleep.

Day 2 started with a fine breakfast. A key discovery that I made early, always make your toast first. That is where the line is at all the breakfast buffets. Love that greasy bacon (strips and the meat sections). Juice, coffee, rolls, "Mc"Donalds" hashbrowns , eggs (style varied from place to place), sausage, mushrooms, spagetti, baked beans, several types of fruit, hot and cold cereal, vegiemite (spelling) and a few other items I cannot recall were offered at the buffets. At 7:15 am we departed. Temperature for that day was 9/16 degrees. Today was another long drive. We did cross the Murray River a couple times and had a wine tasting at Banrock Station in the Barossa Valley. The wines I tasted were average to me. They were very generous with letting you try up to 12 or so wines. Bought a cheap Shiraz for later. Still no wild life along the road without wings. We stayed that night at the Novetel Borassa Valley Resort. We arrived late. Seem like a very nice place, but we were late again. Nice room and a great dinner. Note, on a prior trip we took a one day trip to the Borassa Valley from Adelaide for wine tasting. I recommend that tour highly.

Day three. Did I tell you we had four new passengers? This was going to be the process. While I thougt everyone was going to Darwin, people were added and removed as we went! Could have phased that differently, but I think I will leave it that way. Breakie was great. It was at 6:30 am, not so great. We are off to Coober Pedy today. Today will really be long. We will travel through Port Augusta and Woomera for those with maps. We are now starting to see more animals. Roos, wallabies, emus, eagles, goulahs, cockatoos and a wambat. Oh, and plenty of sheep and cattle. The road kill is picking up too. We had our normal three stops (tea, lunch, tea) and arrived very late at our lodgings in Coober Pedy. The Desert Cave Motel isn't really underground. WWW.desertcave.com.au. Some rooms are built into the mountain, and have rock walls and no windows. We stayed in one of those. The walls have the cut marks of the machine that does the mining and are coated to hold down the dust. This was our first stop for two nights. We managed to sneak in a load of wash, as did a few others. No one told us that a laundrymat was just across the street. We were told to watch where we went if we left the hotel on foot. They have some troubles with the Abroginals (Abros). Naturally, I went to the store for wine, so I encountered some Abros. They did not speak english and I did not speak their language. They were yelling at each other (normal conversation, I am told and observed elsewhere but not universally). We had a good dinner and went to bed.

Coober Pedy (www.opalcapitalof the world.com.au) is dry. Annual rainfall is 5 inches (175mm). Weather is hot in the summer. Accessible by coach, car, plane or train (Ghan stops about 40kms away).The aboriginal community adopted the name Umoona, meaning long life and the name for the mulga tree. Opals were first discovered here in 1915. Population is about 3,500, mostly european. 45 nationalities are represented. Opal mining is followed by tourism (150,000 tourists/year) for it economy.

Our second day (4th day of the tour) in Coober Pedy was a highlight. First it is off to the Breakaways (33km from town). Coober Pedy means "white man in a hole". The area is consumed with mounds of dirt (mullock) and holes. This is opal country. Australia is one of the few countries with opals. They are mined in only a few area of Australia. CP is probably the most famous. Mining is limited to individuals. You can get a claim and then mine. No corporations are allowed. My observation, if corportations were allowed the opals would be mined out in a couple of years. This way it takes forever and therefore the price of a nice stone for a necklace can run A$20,000. Nice, but small stones of good color in earrings run from A$650 to thousands in a gold setting. Doublets and triplets are cheaper. It is a hard job and not for the old. Sandy, our guide was great. If you go, look her up. She have a magician friend here in San Diego, but I have forgotten his name.

Turns out that mining and house building have a lot in common. First you get your claim. Then you have a circular shaft sunk about 80 foot. You find the opal potentially containing seam, then lower equipment down to start horizontal drilling. "Rooms" of about 20 by 15 are cut out to form your house, while you mine the 6 inch seam. The mine we went into and did some Noodling had a 25 foot deep ramped trench dug with an angular shaft angled down another 20 foot or so. Leslie found some interesting material with minor color, but not enough to be commercial. We brought this and some other stuff home. Once in the mine we could go to the active mining area. There were several rooms. One mine has 55 rooms!

During our visit we went to an underground church. We saw and touched the dingo fence (2 meters high and 5300 km long crossing 3 states), and then off to salt and pepper hills. This outcrop area is famous for the movies shot there. We actually spent 20 minutes looking for stars that came off the customs! I found 2. They are really small, but plentiful. Leslie found some too. We drove by the race track (one day a year they have horse racing). We had a putting contest on the green. Note this golf course has NO growing anything on it. Completely composed of rock, gravel and sand. Leslie won the closest to the hole contest (about 5 inches on a 22 foot put). Lyle was second, not much difference. Most tries were 15 foot off!

Much of the town is above ground, but plenty is below. The temperatures can get to 50 or more. In that heat, underground is the only place to be. Most underground homes keep a steady 22-24 degrees. Tonight it is BBQ with the first drink on APT. We spent our second night in our cave.

Did I mention, I have now found that Old Tooneys is pretty good. XXXX is alright with some food. Gingerbeer is a bit sharp.

That is it for now. Next section will pick up on the way to Uluru and the Olgas.