The desert from above and below

The day started rather exciting: a scenic flight over the desert! A few of the group decided to change perspective and enjoy a totally different view of the desert. We flew over an area called the painted hills where the morning sun created amazing colors on the rugged surface. A totally recommendable trip!
Before we headed off (Kev had actually managed to fix the tyres) I went to the pub to look for Joergs student card which he had left here, following an old tradition. Almost a fluke but I found it! And of course I left my student card, too.
We had actually met two thirds of the population of William creek – at the moment three people are living there! Apparently they used to be five but two couldn’t bare the crowds anymore and moved away recently.
In the literal middle of nowhere we stopped for some group shots and built a memorial made of one rock for each group member at the side of the road.
Crossing the dog fence a couple more times we approached Coober Pedy, the opal city. 80% of the worlds opals are found here, and 80% of the people live in dug-outs rather than normal houses. Inside those caves the temperature stays at a constant 21 degrees whereas outside temperatures vary from -5 in winter to 55 degrees in summer! While mining in town is not permitted anymore, people still try to find opals by officially extending the house which means here digging another room – and obviously if your lucky you find an opal and become rich!
Coober Pedy also made it to the cinema: because of the vast and moon-like appearance of the place movies such as Pitchblack, Mad Max and Red Planet were shot here.
We had fish ‘n chips for lunch and then joined a museum tour where we learned about the history and practice of opal mining. I didn’t know for example that opals a valued according to the number of colours rather than weight or size! Now I know.
After the tour I went for a stroll around the town, not too easy in the heat but I was rewarded with a huge road train stopping right in front of me. Impressive! I also came across this funny sign which makes totally sense as there are about 1.5 million holes in the ground and they never get closed (someone might want to dig deeper).
After dinner we went to the Underground where we played pool and table soccer (a very rare thing in Australia, actually still the only one I’ve seen here down under so far). We slept under ground that night, in bunks dug deep into a hill.