Six Feet Under

It was time to head south towards South Australia and Adelaide. The scenery was flat and arid with little vegetation or settlement. 360 degrees of nothingness except for the long straight endless road.

Nice sunset at a rest area where we stayed one night. 

On the way we saw a few big salt lakes. 

Yeah, I shouldn't have let him drive!

One night we stayed at a small, eccentric town of Coober Pedy, 850 km north of Adelaide. The town is known as the Opal Capital of the World. Many movies have been filmed in the arid, apocalyptic landscape. At first glance the tiny township doesn't seem very fascinating. All you see is dust.

On the surface, the town doesn't seem very interesting.

This is because 85 % of the population lives underground to escape the extreme heat of the summer. They have underground churches, shops and hotels. The aboriginal name Coober Pedy means a white man's hole in the ground. Well, of course we had to try it out and we booked a hotel room for the night. The hotel was nicely built, way more than six feet under, dim, dank, but warm, which suited me, as the nights in the van started to get colder and colder the more south we went. This time we didn't have time to spare for mine visits or other attractions. We had dinner at a nice Greek restaurant and retired early to our cave.