Coober Pedy

24th June 2013

Tell today was the worst start to any day on the trip we have had so far. We were having breakfast when Rach needed to go outside to grab something from the car for the girls. Shortly after she came in and told me that the car had been broken into, which I couldn't believe.

I went out to find the passenger window smashed & glass everywhere. We soon realised that Rach's purse was in the car and had unfortunately been grabbed. Luckily (if you can call it that), there was no cash, just the cards that had to be cancelled and the obvious inconvenience.

Not a great way to start the day

As the morning went on, the local police attended, took details etc and as I continued to clean up the mess we had a sinking feeling in our stomachs as we realised that our new camera complete with 3 memory cards full of photos from the trip had also been stolen, not happy Jan to say the least.

The worst part about it, was that when staying in the van our routine is to grab all the electronics out of the car, however because we treated ourselves last night and changed our routine, we had missed grabbing these out of the car. We are hoping that we get lucky and the police may turn them up in the future, but we are sure not holding our breath. At least we have a heap of photos on our phones, so not all is lost.

After discovering the camera missing, we had to go into the local police station to add the details to the report before returning to patch up the window, have lunch and decide whether to stay another night in Coober Pedy or leave.

You have to be careful in more ways than one in Coober Pedy

We decided on the later, as I have to get the repairs done in Adelaide and so we packed our things and checked out a couple of site before leaving town. We first went to an Underground Church which was pretty interesting to see before going to the Old Timers Opal Mine.

Outside Underground Church

Inside Underground Church

Here we had a self guided walk through an old Opal Mine (complete with hard hat) which was just fascinating. The mine we went through had been opened in 1916 and also included original underground housing that had been hand carved out of the rock, it really was unbelievable. At least we left Coober Pedy on a better note!

Entering the Old Timers Mine

Inside the Opal Tunnels

Underground House - Coober Pedy

We made one more stop at an Opal Store the girls had visited the day before, where they purchased some gifts and a couple of souvenirs, before we hit the road and headed south toward Adelaide.

We had earmarked a bush camp a couple hundred kms away, arriving around 6.15pm. After a quick set up, we cooked dinner and settled in for what looks like a cold night ahead. We have vowed not to let the events of this morning ruin our trip, as we have some photos, we have our journals and memories and most of all we have each other and no one can take that away from us.