Opal mining in Coober Pedy

When we first got off in Coober Pedy as the only tourists it was easy to think- where are we now? Ca. 800 km away from the next reasonably sized town in each direction, all sandy coloured and with a pink sunset giving that extra desert feeling (like Tatooine from Star Wars for example).

 It turned out to be a very nice stopover! We first had a very nice dinner at Desert Cave hotel, then slept in pleasent 25 C underground room dugged out in the lime/sandstone, before going on a very nice guided tour in the area with a local old-time miner with a lot of stories. 

The visit to the opal digging fields was really cool, and because people have been digging everywhere there are holes everywhere, so we did not go out of the bus. First it was all man labour, then machines came along. Now it costs about 500 AUD for a hole, 99 out of 100 holes are empty and 98 % of the opals found are worth nothing. Good luck digging:) 

I got more lucky and got a beautiful necklace with opal from Maarten for christmas. He is now photographing his gift behind me, so I'm sure there will be an update on that too:)