No giant women allowed in the mines!

Day 23: Thursday, July 9th, 2015
Steps taken: 6,418

I didn't sleep too well that night, and not because I was stepped on!  Thankfully we weren't in too much of a rush.  I got cleaned up, spit my mouthwash in the dying embers of our fire to have them go up in a mini blaze of glory, and had a light breakfast of two pieces of bread, a banana, and a granola bar.  I packed up my SWAG bag, my stuff, and helped pack up our camper before we hit the road.  I read and played my 3DS until our next pit stop, which was back at the Uldonda rest stop.  I said hello to the emus, and bought some snacks with the last of my money hoping that there would be a currency exchange in Coober Pedy.

An hour after leaving the rest stop, we reached the Northern Territory-Southern Australia border.  We set up our lunch there.  Another G group driving the Gemma bus leaving for Darwin was there when we arrived.  I had a pretty similar lunch as I did at the cultural center the day before except that I also had some cheese & bacon twisties (cheese doodles) instead of rice crackers.  It was a good meal except for having to fend off the flies every few seconds.  Kodak said that the number of flies for this time of year was irregular.  Normally it was colder, and most died off.  I did to a handful what nature couldn't.  Once we were satisfied with lunch and dissatisfied with the flies, we packed up and left for the opal capital of the world, Coober Pedy.

It was almost a five hour drive from the border to CP, so I did pretty much the same as I did on the morning ride.  We played 2 truths & a lie.  It was fun, but a few didn't go up including myself.  I had picked out my two truths and one lie, but I was feeling lethargic, a bit anxious, and also I didn't feel like lying even though it was harmless.  I was pretty tired by this point, but didn't get any sleep on this stretch of the bus ride.

When we got very close to CP around 5pm, we were seeing a little more vegitation, and much more dirt hills.  We were in opal digging territory.  We arrived in town at 5:30.  It is a small town whose identity is centered around the opal industry.  While we were here I couldn't help whistling and singing "All I want to do...is see you turn into...a giant woman, a giant woman.  All I want to be is someone who gets to see a giant woman" from the Steven Universe episode where Pearl and Amethyst fuse into Opal.

At the Desert Cave Hotel, the first thing most people did after checking into the cave rooms, which were awesome, was to take a shower and wash off a few days of funk.  Best shower ever on principle.  The shower didn't stay hot, but it was good to be completely clean again, and wash off my feet which were peeling from the sunburn.  Some of the surrounding areas has Aboriginal artwork, and even the car/tank from Pitch Black with Vin Diesel so I took some photos before dinner.

We walked across the street to John's Pizza & Restaurant, which is rated the best pizza in Australia.  I got a ginger beer, and a small chicken satay pizza.  We waited 20 minutes for our food, which we pre-ordered.  Howerver, before we got our food, seven small spinach & feta pizzas came out when only one person ordered that.  This culinary confusion became a joke for us while we were there.  Thankfully all of our food came out after that, and we had a few extra pizzas.  My pizza was good although the middle fell apart when I was separating the slices.

After dinner, since I was exhausted I read a little bit and fell asleep between 9 and 10.