8:15am Adelaide time
We woke up at 5:30am this morning. It wasn't fun. Although it wasn't too bad since we went to bed pretty early last night. I had a small bowl of cereal quickly. We won't have lunch until around 2:30pm so I maybe should have eaten more but I have apples so I can always have one of those.
We were on the road by 6:37am. We are driving about 600km today. Essentially we have 8 hours in the bus. Tomorrow is all day driving I guess so I don't know what that means but it doesn't sound super fun. I'll for sure have to let Jade, Chris, and Tonto know that if we do a road trip again I am not a master at being in the car for a million hours at a time and I probably won't be as squirmy.
JP and I talked for a while. About school and the brain and traveling. It's always interesting to hear that I am in the minority for the US since most people don't travel abroad. I think they should. For so many reasons. You learn so much about yourself, you expand your knowledge about the world and other cultures, you step out of your comfort zone on a daily basis, and you see that the horrible things you learn about in school about world health or poverty is true (depending on where you travel to). It's one thing to learn about all of this stuff from the other side of the world than it is to be here looking at it and sometimes even experiencing it. Also, you can't do things like ride down a highway on the top of a truck piled high with corn in the US. Ha!
When I could check my email real fast when I was outside the hostel yesterday morning waiting for the bus, I saw an email from KCollege. I'm still confused by it, but it sounds like some PhD neuroclinician is doing his thesis on neurofeedback and anxiety and found my thesis useful and wanted a copy of it. For him to see it I have to release it. I don't know how I feel about it. He would be sent a non-printable, non-editable PDF. On the one hand, it's cool that a PhD student would think my thesis could be helpful. On the other hand, fuck! I spent so much time gathering that research and I was just an undergrad! Do the work yourself you lazy person! So, I really need to decide what to do about that. I have a week though since I won't have Internet before the end of this trip.
9:43am Adelaide time
We just stopped in Pimba. We were in Port Augusta earlier. We are now officially in the Outback. It won't really look like the Outback though because of winter. So that's sad.
We have 366km to Cooper Pedy which is where we will be spending the night. It's where opal is found so we will see opal and go through an opal mine, and go see some baby kangaroos at a rescue center. Should be cool!
The sign we passed said 1050km to Alice Springs. Ha...
10:39pm Adelaide time
When we arrived in Coober Pedy, it was interesting. The town is literally just a bunch of dirt piles but then people live or build shops in these. In the summer the Outback gets incredibly hot so they use this to moderate the temperatures without needing to use air conditioning. There are some normal shops and buildings down the Main Street but most of the town is just dirt piles. Our accommodation is also a dirt pile. JP calls the inside a cave. It's literally just an underground bunkhouse basically. The walls are white marble looking. It goes on forever it seems like. We have our own bunkhouse to ourselves but we could probably fit at least 3 more of our size group in here. The temperature is very nice in the bunkhouse. Even now, outside is pretty hot. We all changed into flip flops and shorts/dresses.
When we were driving in the bus, the front seat was getting hit with direct sunlight and it was soooooo hot. It was almost like I was back in Asia. It was crazy. I was even sweating a bit.
When we arrived we had lunch which consisted of left over pasta and sandwich stuff from yesterday. Then, we set up our beds (we had to put the sheets and blankets on the bunk beds) and at 3pm we headed to the mine which was literally right there. It is owned by the same property as the hostel.
The mine was interesting. We watched a ridiculous video on how opal came to be. Coober Pedy is literally "white man in hole" translated from the aboriginal language. They named it this when they walked past and noticed the white miners living in the hillside as shelter from the heat. Before opal was discovered in Australia (in the late 1800s I think), Hungary was the opal capital of the world. I can't remember how exactly they came about the opal, but it was discovered in Queensland and Victoria, but none in the Outback region. Then they went looking for it and found it. People were striking rich.
After the movie they showed us the different jewelry types which is solids (just the stone), doubles (the stone glued to a background), and triples (the stone on the background with a clear part over it to protect it). They also showed us the different tools and how they sand down and make the jewelry from the stone.
We were then led through the mine. It's pretty cool to see how people used to live, and still do live underground. We saw an example of a house from when they first started living underground (there was a small wooden bucket that apparently was only filled with water once every 2 weeks and that was their allotment for the 2 weeks for drinking and laundry and bathing, etc. Water here is expensive because it has to be drilled from the ground and desalted which is an expensive process). We also saw a more modern house. They can put TVs down here and everything. They have the kitchen, bathroom/shower, and laundry all at the front of the house because they are the wet zone which means that if something happens with the pipes they are all at the front of the house and the entire house doesn't have to be dug up.
In the olden days they would just use their pick, but now there are drilling machines. They have to make shafts for ventilation before they drill. Then, while drilling they listen for a certain noise and when they hear that they go use their picks to check it out. Anyone can get a permit to mine opal in Coober Pedy. I think for $35 you can get a permit for 3 months. But, you are required to work at least 20 hours a week to keep it and they do come around and check.
At the end, of course, we got to spend time in the gift shop. There were 2 rings I liked but I just liked them because they were there, not because I was in love with them, so I didn't buy either of them. They were expensive. $90 and $195 AUD.
After this, we loaded into the bus and JP took us to the Coober Pedy sign to take photos. We did a group photo... Probably the only one we will all have on our cameras. JP didn't seem too excited to have the honor of taking photos for that. There was some pretty funny signage here as well. He then drove us around the town. It's prett small. Very small actually. And there isn't too much around. A school, a garden with 1 plant, he told us a story about a resident in the 90s who liked Star Trek and they kept advertising it to be on TV but not airing it and he got mad and blew up the news building.
There used tone no police in the town as well but too many people were killing eachother over opal so the police came and started making laws and rules. The locals hated it and put up much resistance by blowing up police cars and stations, etc.
Then we got dropped off at the kangaroo center. I found the lady actually very off putting. She didn't seem very nice. The kangaroos were cute though. They are crazy soft! I got to pet them and feed them! We saw 2 babies as well. We were asked to give a donation for visiting and I have $4 AUD. kangaroos are seriously strange but cool creatures.
After this we had a while til dinner so I showered and messed around with packing my bag. For dinner we walked down the street to a pizzeria. It wasn't the best pizza ever, and it was pretty burnt, but it was food and included in the tour. I had a beer and it cost $5AUD.
After dinner we went to a pub. It is a Sunday night and it was very dead... Like closed. On the way back I sat outside for a bit. I have never been able to see as many stars in the sky as I've seen here. We could even see the Milky Way tonight. So cool! We couldn't see the moon though...
Even though we barely did anything today, I am exhausted!
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