Coober Pedy to Marla

After a very windy night at Coober Pedy we awoke to beautiful blue skies and a magnificent sunrise.  We packed up and were to venture into town to see some other interesting things in Coober Pedy. We went into an Opal shop and ‘Stella’ the owner was very nice and gave the boys some rocks in a pouch that they can then take to school to show everyone. Then she let all of us choose a beautiful shiny colored stone each, Dylan got a dark blue, Oliver got cream one, Lily got a pale pink and I chose a dark green stone.  Dylan decided to spend some of his money and buy a shape of Australia that has some opal in it.  We walked to see the underground museum on how they mine and saw some of the machinery. We walked into an Opal store and were amazed at all the Opals. Mark was going to buy me the $110.00 Opal but I think secretly he has purchased the $18,500 necklace that I am sure he’ll give to me at a later date. Across the road was ‘John’s Pizza and Restaurant’, so we had a pizza for lunch as a specialty.  There was a street nearby that was called Oliver Street, so yes he had a photo next to his street. We then went to the underground church and again this was really interesting. So beautiful with stain glass windows as you go down into the church. We drove to the top of the hill in town to see the view from the lookout and then took a drive to the Breakaways and Moon Plains. There is a dog fence that runs from Surfers Paradise to the Bight of W.A, its 5600km long to keep the dingoes out. The Moon Plains was interesting as we stopped the car and all got out to feel the texture of the ground it was a grey sand but so fine you sink into it, I guess its like the Moon, hence the name. We had fun pretending we were walking on the Moon ourselves. A 2-hour drive was now ahead to a town called Marla. We arrived 4.30pm and booked a quick no power site just for the night before we head to Yulara. A stroll after dinner was in need for the kids as they were all a little ratty from the car. We ended up in a bar, I think the only bar in the town and watched Essendon lose to Hawthorn. We are in a small town in outback Australia and we meet this husband and wife with their adult daughter and the daughter plays netball against our nieces (Molly and Til), they were from Ouyen. Its lovely speaking to people traveling and seeing where they are from and where their journey is taking them.