We leave Ayers rock resort and start the long haul to Coober Pedy.

A boring drive until we hit the outskirts. This place is barren, no trees, no green, no grass....just another alien landscape, akin to a thousand ant colonies dotting the horizon as the mounds from the mines are dumped wherever.

We pull into the town and I can read Di's mind....and it aint pretty  :  )

We decide to try and find an underground hotel (as you do in Coober Pedy) and end up staying at the Flag Inn.

Our room in the underground Motel....carved out of a disused mine.

This turned out to be the Opal of Coober Pedy (excuse the pun)

We took the $10 tour and was shown all through the new part of the extensions. Recently excavated the mine was raw and gave us a great indication of what it was like in the mines themselves. The hotel extensions had also uncovered a lot of mine shafts from the 50's and the 70's. These were left in their natural state and were fantastic to see. Our tour guide was the man doing the excavations in the hotel (the only legal way to mine in the township) and had been here since the age of 14. He was now a town council member and seemed to know just about everything there is to know about this place. He then proceeded to show us a natural wonder under the chapel next door (part of the hotel itself) The largest ever shell patch. registered with the Heritage foundation, they decided not to mine the opal out of it (several Million $$ worth) as the hotel extensions had already provided them with enough money. They are going to preserve this as an exhibit. When shown under a UV light, the opals light up like a Christmas tree. This patch was just stunning.

We met some locals at the pizza place that night....an interesting experience that is probably best left untold.

Back to the underground hotel and it was time for sleep.