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This is a collection of my blog entries related to short or long trips I went on.
I have some master pages for some specific locations/trips:

paris over many years | UK over many years | Belgium over many years | Holland over many years | Vegas over many years | Australia over many years | Canada over many years | Japan over multiple trips | Italy in 2011 | France in 2013 | Indonesia in 2013 | Japan in 2013 | Japan in 2014 | Taiwan in 2014 | Indonesia in 2014 | New Zealand in 2015 | Japan in 2015 | Costa Rica in 2015 | Singapore in 2016 | South Korea in 2016 | Japan in 2016 | Germany in 2016 | Tasmania 2017 | Japan in winter 2017 | Great Britain in 2017 | Australia Flying Safari 2017 | Philippines 2018 | Spain in 2018 | Alaska in 2019 | England in 2021 | UAE in 2021 | Poland in 2023 | Portugal in 2023 | Thailand in 2023 | Japan Snow 2024 |

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2017/10/12 Oz Day 06: Coober Pedy, Australia's Opal Capital
π 2017-10-12 01:01 in Australia, Flying, Nflying, Ntrips, Ozsafari2017, Trips

Coober Pedy was literally founded after early settlers randomly found opals, and the rest is history: many people moved it like a gold rush, although opals are not that easy to find (mostly random) and in the end aren't worth that much compared to the time and energy people put into finding them. Sadly many people lost their life's time and savings looking for them, and very few ended up ahead.

On the flight to and from Coober Pedy, we got to see the very many holes that were dug out to look for opals. From the gound it almost looks like the ground got shot by many big bullets and then finished off by bombs :)




It's only looking closer in the places that you see more:





Going for landing, and found a nice little dragon on the taxiway:





After going to our hotel with rooms dug in the hill, which is how people live to stay cool in the otherwise hot sun:

the clay gets a varnish on top so that it doesn't fall on you
the clay gets a varnish on top so that it doesn't fall on you

We went to see the hotel museum and nearby mining museum:



Australia had a big island sea with prehistoric sea creatures
Australia had a big island sea with prehistoric sea creatures

wicked
wicked


Lots of displays on how mining is done:




Opals:




The museums also showed multiple rooms cut into the hills how people lived/live. As a bonus, when you dig to add one room to your house, you might just find opals at the same time:




You could also tour some caves:



you can see the tunnel boring machine
you can see the tunnel boring machine



Many stores selling opals in all different ways:



Visiting the town had a few left over props from multiple movies that were shot there:

From Pitch Black with Vin Diesel (a good SciFi movie actually)
From Pitch Black with Vin Diesel (a good SciFi movie actually)







not a movie prop, but super cool to see a DS so far from home
not a movie prop, but super cool to see a DS so far from home

They also have landscape that looks close enough to Mars for Mars movies to have been shot there:



They also have a kangaroo sanctuary where they raise little joeys adpoted from killed moms:





We had a morning tour that took us to a mining area:


most holes are left unattended and are easy to fall into
most holes are left unattended and are easy to fall into





Nearby was breakaways, a former inland sea:












A few shots of breakaways from the sky:





Nearby was the dingo fence, it kept Jennifer safe from being eaten :)



Last part of our tour was a church built into the side of a hill, very interesting:





We then went on our own to see another mine, and house built into a hill:





More housing quarters:










A fair amount of aborigines live there:


nice art
nice art


Misc:






Coober Pedy is definitely a cool place to visit, and learning about a different kind of mining that isn't really practiced anywhere else.


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