Opal Capital of the World

We spent Easter at Coober Pedy - producer of over 80% of the world's opal - and 0% of the world's grass. The Opal Festival was on Easter Saturday, a parade of floats from the local businesses down the main street, then an afternoon of fun activities at the footy oval - wheelbarrow race, tug-of-war, egg and spoon, all the old favourites - culminating in a fireworks display in the evening. Not to be missed was the emergency services demo, using an old car that was supposedly involved in an accident. First the SES ripped off the doors using the 'jaws of life', then the ambulance service rescued the 'injured driver', then the fire service doused it in petrol and set it alight, so they could put the fire out. Cool!

Tourist activities here include tours of various mines, both still working and historic, inspection of various underground buildings (a reasonable portion of the town is actually built into the hillsides, insulating the residents from the at times 50 degree heat in Summer, and freezing cold Winter nights), drive to the Breakaways - interesting rock formations - and the dog fence, which stretches for over 5000km to keep dingoes out of sheep country. Lastly is the approximately 2500 opal shops selling jewellery (at least it feels like that many). We had a look at the golf course, you carry your own little green mat to hit from, decided not to give it a go.

The weather is still hot, we haven't been below 30 in the day for a couple of weeks now, although the nights generally cool down sufficiently to sleep. Last night the bureau promised us some rain today, but they've now decided they were just teasing, and the rain isn't coming after all. The promised cool change seems to consist of changing the forecast high to 29 instead of 30.