After a long and dusty drive we reached the Opal capital of Australia, Coober Pedy. Coober Pedy is a small town and a mining mecca for these gemstones in the middle of the dessert. We had the feeling that we drove into a post apocalyptic wasteland, but it is definitely interesting!
There are 44 different nationalities in Coober Pedy, whereby most of them came here for the mining of Opal. The Opals were discovered her roughly 100 years ago and until today 95% of all the Opals in the world are coming from this area.
Opal is one of the world’s most beautiful and precious gemstones. It is one of only six types of precious gemstones found on the planet, together with diamonds, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and pearls.
Coober Pedy is not a standard tourist town, with temperatures of around 40 degrees, swarms of flies and the isolated location in the middle of the dessert but they try to make the best out of it and there is a fare amount of hostels, campgrounds, restaurants and shops. It is actually a good place to stop if your are on the way to Uluru from Adelaide. We really enjoyed it!
The first thing we did when we arrived is buying a “head fly net”. It was the best $ 3.5 I have spent in my life! It is definitely not fashionable but really, you need it! The swarms of flies are the worst here in the outback of Australia.
We discovered the town in a half day, it is pretty small and after 3 pm we were completely roasted so we decided to head back and relax in the shade. We stayed 2 nights in Coober Pedy at a cool campground in the town owned by an old Opal miner. For $5 a night we had a campsite with shower, toilets and electricity, not bad at all! He gave us a lot of useful information about the town and what you need to know when buying Opal.
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http://www.yonderingmonkeys.com/coober-pedy/
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If you quote the source in your blog post, then you can avoid the cheetah bot commenting on your article.
I'm Australian myself, but living in U.S. I enjoyed reading your post. You are going to places that I never even visited in the 47 years I lived there.
Looking forward to reading more. :-)
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Ah thanks for your help! Australia is a great country! lots to see!
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Good post and interesting travel! I am also trying to do some blogging about a bike trip so it's nice with some inspiration:)
Keep it up! Safe travels.
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Thank you!
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Haha how could I not have known of the existence of a head fly net?! Could have used one of them when I was there. Those flies in the Australian outback are so nasty and aggressive, trying to get into every hole on your face! :-D Now following you to see more reports of those rural places!
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Haha I know!! The flies are probably the worst thing in Australia.
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