Coober Pedy Makes a Miner out of Me
My first impressions of Coober Pedy may have been that it is a hot dusty shit hole, which probably remains true, but 48 hours later I didn’t want to leave. We made a bunch of new friends, had a great gig and more than a little adventure. The town is a collection of misfits from a all over the world, attracted by the opal prospecting, no rules lifestyle. Here are just a few that we met:
(some names may have been changed – not so much to protect the innocent as I don’t remember the actual names so had to invent)
Barry tells us that he runs the local radio station Dusty FM. We meet him in the Opal Inn when we are setting up the gig and he suggests that we come in the next day to promote it. Barry is nearly a local but not quite, he moved here with his parents from Sydney 35 years ago when his dad came looking for Opals. Barry has a face for radio but a voice for silent movies, he stutters and mumbles when he speaks so much that it is near impossible to understand what he is saying. We are therefore quite surprised the next day to discover that he is also the DJ. He runs through with us what he is going to discuss while Bat Out Of Hell entertains the listeners, we have no idea what he is on about. Meat Loaf ends and suddenly the voice of an angel informs that we are “Listening to Dusty FM, Coober Pedy’s only and best radio station…” Wow Barry you have a radio voice, this will be ok. But as soon as his obviously well rehearsed line has been delivered and he is back on uncharted conversation the stutter and mumble return. We complete the oddest interview imaginable.
Czech Vic is a 68 year old archetypal opal prospector with leather skin, no teeth and a long white beard. He came out to the town over 35 years ago when people were regularly pulling $50k of opal out of the ground. He tells me that all the easy deposits have long since gone but he still has the occasional find that pays his bills. I ask him if he has a wife and he exclaims “three!” When I ask where they are he points around him in three directions, possibly to mine shafts where their bodies are lying? He tells me that if he has a good find he likes to put on his best suit, go down to Adelaide Czech club and find himself a lady, although no one over 35. The youth requirement becomes more relevant once he volunteers that his favorite sexual position involves the lady standing on her head. I enquire why and he explains it is so that he can drop his cock into her upturned mine shaft like a sink weight.
Trevor, originally from London, first found Coober Pedy when he stopped off on his way to do a job in Darwin (they were still dirt roads back then). A man had $30k cash in a shoe box after selling a parcel of opal. He was paying off debts and buying the whole pub drinks. Trevor won $5k off him at the pool table and decided to stay for a bit. 30 years later he is still there. He says that although he has tried, he has never had much luck finding the opal, but he has continued to do alright by playing pool against more successful miners. He asks me if I want a game and I decline his kind offer. That is the problem he tells me, tourists don’t have the same cash to burn as miners. He now supplements his hustling as the local painter and decorator a few hours per week.
Wayne, when he is not propping up the Opal Inn bar, is the local cop. We meet him at the gig and he is drinking heavily and happy to heckle. Calling him chief of police gets an unexpectedly big laugh and I ask if this title is maybe a little unlikely? One punter snorts beer through his nose in agreement and so I label the copper head of Roo Road Kill Management. The reception it gets makes me think it is a title that could stick. Having a chat after the gig it turns out that he used to be a cop in Adelaide but as he got banned from more and more boozers for drinking escapades it became increasingly hard to do his job. He was relocated to the wilds of Coober Pedy where he seems to be in his element.
Jeremy is originally from Darlington and is now an Outback Dentist passing through towns like Coober every six months. I suspect that there isn’t a great deal of remedial care and he specialises in extractions. Most of the regulars seem to have had his plyers in their mouths at some point in the past.
Pete who we had seen at the servo on the drive up to Coober Pedy informs me that in 30 years of driving around the outback he has only hit 3 kangaroos and I see that my Roo roadkill may have been more unusual than I realized?
Various tourists and blow in workers from the hotels, other bar and small but seemingly growing tourist trade in the town make up the rest of the audience at tonight’s gig that goes down remarkably well considering we are competing with pokies, horse racing and football on the TV’s all of which remain turned on throughout.
Pauline… Just before we are turfed out at midnight a local comes in. I mean an actual local. Her family have lived in the area for over 40,000 years She has come in for a cask of wine to take out. We get chatting and she invites me to follow the cask back to the party. I am straight in the car and we drive a few kilometers out of town. Back at the house is her sister Audrey and her brother Carlton. The other white guy in the group is the boyfriend of her brother. Pauline was born in the 50′s to a Greek father. She tells me about the stolen generation. Where the church took mixed race children away from their families. She tells me that she knew children that disappeared but that her grandfather hid her in the bush and she avoided it. I am made completely welcome, learn a lot about their culture, get pissed with them, laugh, get my fortune read, get some new shoes and crash the night. Goodnight Coober Pedy.
Coober Pedy may only have a population of 2000 but based on the sample I met this strange little town is as cosmopolitan as your average capital city. I love Coober Pedy.
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