Today started with some love showering over Debbie for Mothers’ Day. At home, we love heading out for breakfast on or around Mothers’ Day, and so I wanted to make sure we were still able to do that here. We headed out to a lovely cafe/bar just behind our accomodation called the Big Winch 360. It’s perched up on a hill in Coober Pedy, and so we ate our breakfast overlooking the town – sure, it’s just a town of lots of dirt mounds, but it was still lovely!
Also a great chance to find another big thing to add to our list. I think I mentioned a while ago that we have a list of big things we want to see – but as we travel along, we’re just stumbling upon a bunch more big things that we didn’t plan for! And the Big Winch was one of them.
Of course, being in Coober Pedy, we wanted to find an opal mine tour to do. We looked at a couple of different ones that offered self-guided tours, but decided that perhaps having a guided tour might help us get more out of it all. Thankfully there was still space for the tour at Tom’s Opal Mine, and so we headed there for the 10am tour – and it was the right call. We had an awesome time! Our guide, Paul (who now owns the mine), has been an opal miner for 40+ years, and so he regaled us with story after story as he walked us through the mine. Including all the stories of how, once he finds a haul of opals, they clean them up and then call up the local opal buyer in Coober Pedy (who’s been one of the same guys for decades) and negotiates the sale. It’s all so informal and handshake deals, and that makes sense for when it was really busy decades ago – but that’s still apparently how most of it is done today! He kept us entertained with those stories, but he also did a great job of keeping the kids entertained – once we were deeper into the mine, he sent them off with black lights to search for little pieces of opal (which he’d planted throughout the tunnels). They had the time of their lives – there was another couple there with two kids similar age, and so they had a great time altogether.
Once we finished up the tour, they served us scones and coffees, which was just a really generous and lovely way to end things. We ended up chatting with a few other people who were on the tour as we enjoyed our late morning tea together.
But the best part of it for the kids was getting to negotiate for the sale of their opals they found throughout the mine. Our guide, Paul, sat down at his desk with his magnifying glasses on, inspecting their opals, and then asking them how much they wanted for them (he had a few gold coins, or Chupa Chups, or some chocolates, and he even made up a couple of little rings with opals for the girls). Very much acting out the stories he told us earlier of how he negotiated the sale of the opals he’d found over the years, he encouraged the kids to negotiate with him on what they wanted for their opals. Then together, the kids and Paul settled on a fair price – $1, plus two Chupa Chups, plus a little packet of M&Ms – or something like that, for each kid. He was great with them, and all the kids had so much fun doing it – and walked away with some of their own opals plus some extras!
After a bit of a break back at the motel, with the kids keen to keep playing their game of Disney Monopoly from the motel’s board game shelf, we headed back out to look at a few more interesting things around Coober Pedy. We first headed for the Serbian Orthodox Church – a stunning underground church, with beautiful glass windows at either end.
Next up was a quick drive out to the Coober Pedy Golf Club – after seeing this golf course featured on The Amazing Race Australia a couple of years back, we were keen to go and visit! Unfortunately, it’s not really open to the public or suited to tourists – but it was great to drive past and see such a unique golf course.
Tonight, we’re heading back out for dinner – motel life. Tomorrow will also be eating out as well, as we stopover for the night at a roadhouse. As much as I really do love eating out, after 3 nights in a row I think I’ll be looking forward to something homemade when we arrive at the apartment in Yulara!
