Day 22 – From Adelaide to Coober Pedy

The day started very early with the little bus being very punctual at 6am in front of the hostel.

The bus was already half full and I sat at the very end of it so that I could also see who my other fellows travellers were in this little adventure. The group was composed by 7 British, 4 Chinese, one couple of Korean and Japanese, 2 Germans, 2 Americans, 1 Finnish, 1 French and I. A very heterogeneous group of people. The journey begun and we left Adelaide heading into the outback. The scenario changed quite immediately: as soon as we left the city, the road entered into a proper rock-desert environment. Massive trucks were driving very fast and few bars were scattered around the road every now and then. We stopped for lunch in a bar/gas station which looked like one of those Saloons you can see in the spaghetti-western movies; we continued driving until we hit the city of Coober Pedy at dusk. Six hours driving and the desert was becoming more and more vast, the human settlements more rare, and the nature relatively wilder.

The city of Coober Pedy seemed more like a ghost town at night. Nothing much to do really if not finding food for dinner (we had pizza which was surprisingly excellent) and a nice chat in which all of us started to know each other. The most interesting element of the day was the place where we slept. Since during the day the temperature is too hot, and at night it is too cold, the people of Coober Pedy sleep and live under ground. Their houses, shops and offices and everything else is mostly built underground. The town lives thanks to the miners who search the opal. Opal is the blood of the city and the reason why miners and many luck-seekers moved to Coober Pedy. The population is really limited to those of the local miners and their relatives and some aboriginals.

The hostel was, as per almost everything, underground. Two main corridors/rooms with eleven bunk beds each. No walls but simple and pure rock all around us. If you suffer of claustrophobia, that one is really not the place you dream to sleep in. We decided to sleep all in the same room; I thought it was good fun though, considering that the temperature was perfect: dry and warm. I put my earplugs in, and before the light was switched off, making the room totally black, I thought that it was by far one of the weirdest places I have ever slept in!