Thursday, October 18, 2007

Coober Pedy, Adelaide, Sydney. whew

Well it's been a busy couple of days.. i left Alice at 7 on tuesday morning for Coober Pedy. We got in around 6pm which gave us just enough time to take a tour of an underground home and for me to rush out and take as many pictures as i could. its a pretty crazy place. The lady giving the tour said that 50% of the population lives underground. No one is really sure what the population is. According to the tax office, its 100. The post office says 4000... Im fairly enraptured with the whole lifestyle. getting and underground home dug costs about 70 000$, and take about 3 days. Housing is SO expensive here, so thats as much a bargin as youll ever find. The tempurature is an almost constant 24C, even when its 50+ outside. theres no need for heating or air conditioning. the only downside is the dust, and the its musty smelling. Im sold. Opal mining is illegal in the town, so the people who have underground homes do a lot of "renovating" and if they just happen to find opal in the process its theirs to keep! Apparently theres a house in town with 21 bedrooms..

Wednesday we left Coober Pedy at 6am. our first stop was a giant salt lake, called Lake Hart. its about 120km, and from far away it looks a bit like snow... then we went for a walk on it, and its about half an inch layer of salt on top of the lake bottom. If anyones ever seen the movie "Nothing", thats sort of what it reminded me of. There was an old dock with pillars still stuck in the ground.. kind of eerie actually.. We got into Adelaide at dinner time, which was perfect, because the hostel i stayed at just happens to have free BBQ night on wednesdays!

This morning i was up just before 5 (yes.. AM) to catch my flight to sydney, and now here i am.. impatiently waiting for my room to be cleaned so i can have a nap. Tomorrow morning im picking mom up from the airport and then we're off to perth the next day! Im so excited, i cant even sit still.

(just in case anyone was keeping track, thats 4 days in a row ill have been up before 6am)

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