Friday 13th July 2012 - Sunday 15th 2012 - Coober Pedy - Oodnadatta

We packed up slowly and went into explore Coober Pedy. The kids were fascinated by the houses dug into the hills and underground. It looks like the movie set from the original Star Wars and apparently some of the Mad Max movies were filmed here. It's a pretty barren landscape. After a visit to the Visitors Centre we took the kids to the Old Timers Mine. We put on hard hats and began exploring the old mine. There was also a house attached to the mine which was interesting to see. I don't think I could live in an underground house - it's a bit claustrophobic! Afterwards we all had fun in the noodling pit looking for opals. I am not sure why they call looking for opals noodling!

The Old Timers Mine

We also went to one of the hotels in town and explored the underground exhibition they have about the history of Coober Pedy.
After restocking on supplies we decided to camp again out of town in the direction of Oodnadatta. We left town around 4pm hoping to find somewhere to camp. Unfortunately we didn't expect the moon Plains. The was literally no one place to camp. It was a barren landscape. We kept driving thinking we would camp near the Painted Desert (apparently famous for being in the movie Pricilla Queen of the Desert). It was only 45km out of town so we pushed on into Oodnadatta and camped at the racetrack. We had heard that there was a rodeo day there so we thought that we would all enjoy something different. It was another freezing cold night.
The next day we got up and went over to watch the action.

It started with camp drafting - a rider chooses a cow out of a pack and then attempts to steer it around a course whilst on horseback.
The next event was the main event - bronco branding. A rider has to rope a cow and then their team of 3 helpers has to rope a from leg and then a back leg and then the 3rd person uses paint to put a brand on the cows rump and their head. The teams are made up of guys and girls from the different stations. The team that brands 3 cows in the least amount of time wins.

They then did double branding where they had 2 riders to get cows to be branded. The winning team was the one who could brand 6 cows in the least about of time. The ran a calcutta on the double branding and we drew the top team (they went on to win). As we could afford to bid in the auction we waited and ended up getting $150 for just having that team. Happy days!!
They finished the day off with steer riding and wrestling. The kids enjoyed the day, especially as they also had a play area come craft etc set up to entertain the kids.

We finished off the day with a great roast dinner and some great company.
Another freezing night camping under the starts of Oodnadatta