After arriving at Coober Pedy we drove around the outside of town to find our way to Tomcat Hill Caravan Park, which is carved into the north facing side of… Tomcat Hill, about thirty metres above the plain below.

On the other side of the hill is what looks like a private residence and a B&B of some sort that is partly dug into the hill. The road in is a slightly confusing jumble of graded paths with a variety of markings painted on old tires. It’s steep and snakes around the hill and is only just wide enough for the car and van. Thankfully it’s one way in and one way out (not that people don’t get them mixed up).

There’s one short steep section where you’re looking at blue sky over the dashboard and then a final shallow drop that has an outward slope on it that also makes you wonder if you’ve taken the wrong road and you’re going to then have to take five hoursreversing the van back down. Thankfully you drop onto a magnificent, wide, flat ledge area that is the van park with an absolute world-beating panoramic 210^o view out over plain towards The Breakaways. Just simply spectacular and you know in that instant that you have chosen the absolute best place to stay in Coober Pedy and possibly in outback South Australia.

We were greeted by Des, the owner/host who guided us into our site back against the cut rock wall. Des is one of the nicest blokes you’d ever want to meet. He was a cop in Coober Pedy many years ago, who left and five years ago returned to do some opal mining. His Tomcat Hill Caravan Park is a bit of a labour of love and, to our surprise, has only been operating for the last three months. The mains water is as good as Canberra water and the three ensuite style shower/toilets are very probably the best amenities we’ve seen since we started the trip. All built into the side of a hill in the white clay dirt that is Coober Pedy.

After we set our van up Des wandered over and explained to us that the snaking mound around the ledge of the caravan park ledge consists of opal mine mullock that he had had dumped there as fill. With a bit of patience and a ‘black light’ that he lent us for the night you could ‘noodle’ through the mullock and possibly find some opal, which others had done previously. If you found an opal you could keep it. We found a few pieces of ‘potch’, which is colourless, worthless opal. Jo insists that she found a bit of ‘colour’ that Des examined and declared to be a tiny piece of ‘beer bottle potch’ due to the almost microscopic flecks of orange. Value… $Less than worthless!

Whilst noodling we were joined by Barabara and Paul, a lovely couple from the Adelaide Hills region who were following roughly the same track and iteinerary as us going north. We got to know them over the fire pit and would ultimately continue meeting up with them and swapping tales over the coming weeks as we headed north from Coober Pedy.

Tomcat Hill Caravan Park provides its campers with glorious sunrises and sunsets, except our first night due to the cloud cover. The second night though, after Des lit the fire pits, treated us to a magnificent horizon light show traversing the spectrum from pale purple all the way through to bright orange and ember red.

The sunrise is a whole different show where the entire side of the hill is bathed in a golden glow and the air itself looks like honey and just makes you feel wealthy basking in it. It is natures treasure and it’s all yours if only for fifteen minutes or so.

Tomcat Hill also gave us our first chance to get the drone up. Up until now the weather had conspired to keep it safely grounded. The ledge of the campsite was the perfect place to launch and our little drone captured a perfect birds eye view of the hill and the surrounding plains out to the Breakaways. Rob was a little rusty at the controls but the video turned out well.

After three months of travelling we both agree that Tomcat Hill Caravan Park is far and away the best van site we’ve had and is going to be incredibly hard to beat as we travel on…

Tomcat Hill faces the magnificent Breakaways a small range of hills, cliffs and gullies about 30km away. You basically follow the bitumen out to the ‘dog fence’, hang a left and follow the corrugated dirt road out to The Breakaways. It requires a permit that can be bought online.

We were a little undecided about going out to them but so glad we decided to. The whole area is magnificent and steeped in indigenous folklore. The range of earthy colours are the first real introduction to the South Australian desert outback, and the spectacular scenery to be found there.

Most unexpected were the cliffs and gorges that were hidden at distance by the sweeping flat plains as viewed from Tomcat Hill. When visiting the Breakaways you drive through a series of mounds and hills and then suddenly find yourself atop a cliff line that looks further out over the dry, arid plains.

The hills and mounds provide the most dramatic colours of the area. One pair of hills are referred to by indigenous owners as the ‘brown and white dogs’, with a conical nearby hill referred to as the dogs’ owner. The Breakaways were our first real introduction to the range of earthy colours that define the Australian outback desert.

The Opal Cave

The Opal Cave is an opal shop and opal cutting/demonstration spot that is cut in underground on the main street near the IGA. We took a tour of an underground mine that is no longer in operation. Mining is no longer permitted within the town itself. Some older areas were hand dug whereas the newer tunnels were mechanically bored. At one point we were shown a small seam of opal still in the tunnel wall and it was interesting to see how it was detected with black light and the difference when under white light. Check the slider below…

The Opal Cave also houses two underground display homes. One is a recreation of a miners dugout in the 1800’s, the other is a representation of a modern underground home. They were interesting to view and showed how much more comfortable it is living in the constant cooler temperature under the ground. At one point the guide turned off the lights and, as expected, it was completely pitch black and a pure absence of light.

The pitch black of the underground home also took on another meaning due to the crashed space ship outside The Opal Cave in the car park. It was actually the crashed space ship from the movie ‘Pitch Black’ that starred Vin Diesel and was shot in Coober Pedy. It’s quite well preserved and looks oddly at home sitting in the middle of Coober Pedy. It’s interesting to note that Pitch Black was set on a fictional desert planet that suffered from extreme heat but was actually shot in the Coober Pedy winter when they days can be quite cool, as we experienced. The sweat on the actors in the movie was sprayed onto them with spray bottles.

The Big Winch

The Big Winch is Coober Pedy‘s ‘big thing’ tourist attraction. It sits atop the highest hill in the centre of Coober Pedy and is a magnified version of a miners windlass style winch. It houses a bar and grill and provides patrons with a 360^o view of Coober Pedy and surrounds. It also houses a unique 360^o cinema show where you are fully surrounded by the screen. For us it was late in the day and we decided not to view the movie preferring instead to see the real thing outside at the lookout.

The Desert Cave Hotel

Next door to The Opal Cave is the ritzy Desert Cave Hotel. An international underground hotel that has an extensive underground tunnel display area with exhibits, stories and historical information. It’s free to enter and explore and takes you from the carpark into an underground area that ends up in the lobby area of the hotel.

The displays explain the geology of the area, opal formation, mining, classification and grading. We spent the better part of an hour in there looking at the exhibits and reading about the opal trade and all things Coober Pedy.
It really is a grandiose setting for a hotel and quite unique for being able to stay in an underground room with all the usual hotel features. We stopped in at the cafe for a coffee on our way out but noted that it felt a bit deserted and lacking in atmosphere. No doubt the tour buses keep it thriving but we much preferred our elevated campsite at Tomcat Hill.

Faye Nayler was a stoic and indefatiguable single women who lobbed into Coober Pedy in 1961 and decided to stay. She built a cafe by herself from scrounged materials and made her living by cooking for the miners and the early tourist buses passing through. She was a pioneer entrepreneur and began the first tours of Coober Pedy that started the tourism trade in the town.

That was…until her cafe burned down in a fire. Instead of giving up she bought a previously worked out opal mine and began opal mining herself and digging out, by hand, her own dugout home. As luck would have it she found a rich vein of opal only 3 metres in from the old mine (worth $1 million plus at the time).

She learned to cut and polish her own opals and started the original Opal Cave business that also contributed to the growing tourist trade. She was a genuine outback character and invited two girlfriends to come to Coober Pedy to live and work with her. When they arrived they had to dig out their own rooms, which expanded Faye’s underground home turning it into a three-bedroom dugout complete with kitchen, living room, pantry and bar.

Faye and her friends were all gay and her parties were legendary events that sometimes went on for days. Our Tomcat Hill host, Des, said that he had been to a few back in the day but that they were a bit to rowdy for him and not to his liking.

Not content with her underground home, Faye actually hand dug a swimming pool at the back entrance of the dugout, which was ultimately enclosed by besser block walls and a roof but still accessible from the inside underground. The pool, as well, was party central and ‘clothing optional’ back in the day.

Faye ultimately left Coober Pedy to buy a pub and retire back in Queensland where she died. She is fondly remembered in Coober Pedy as the pioneer of tourism in the town, an outback character and a woman who could pretty much do anything and take care of herself against blokes bigger than herself.

In lieu of fishing the next day we took a drive up into the Flinders Ranges to the small village of Melrose. It was a very scenic drive up through the Germein Gorge to the plateau where Melrose is located at the foot of Mt Remarkable.

We stopped at one point to look at a farmhouse ruin as large helicopter came quite close overhead doing a slow scan of the area as though it was looking for a missing person or trying to find somewhere to set down. It looked a bit like a rescue or care flight helicopter.

Melrose is another of those small out-of-the-way villages but seems to be thriving as part of the Heysen Trail. It is notable for an extensive network of mountain biking trails in the hills that adjoin the town. There is a lookout that you can walk up to following the bike trails, some of which look very extreme. Before walking to the lookout we had a coffee in small shop that also ran a bike shop catering to moutain biking enthusiasts with lots of expensive, high-tech, high-end machinery as well as bike hire.

You can camp below the bike trails and pedal your heart out during the day and there are even mountain bkie skills sessions that you can meet up and do. Not enticing enough for us to hire though… The walk up to and down from the lookout was enough of an adventure for that day.

Melrose was also a convenient place to fill the cruiser with diesel, since there is no fuel station in Port Germein, and grab some chicken wraps to take with us for a drive out to the ‘Bluff Lookout’. I was expecting $2.40/L but pleasantly surprised to find it was $2.07/L, the second cheapest price in our trip so far.

After Melrose we headed south toward The Bluff Lookout, via Wirrabara, where there was yet another outstanding piece of silo art. The portrait of the farmer is of no actual person. It simply depicts a man of the land as a tribute to local farmers in the region.

Onwards to The Bluff Lookout we followed a series of dirt roads only to end up getting half-lost and having to turn back from a restricted Helipad area, which we thought may have been something to do with helicopter that we saw earlier. In the end we found the right track, which ended in a very steep incline to the lookout parking area.

Then a short walk to a viewing platform that presented a fantastic panorama from which you could see all the way from Port Pirie through Port Germein and almost to Port Augusta. It really was an unexpected gem after a bit of effort to get there.

Paulette Wines

Our nephew Anthony and his wife Dee had previously recommended that we go to Paulettes Wines and do the tasting flight with matched canapes, which we duly did. Wow!!! Just absolutely superb. At Paulettes staff recommendation we chose to share a white and red flight between us. The wines by themselves were beautiful but when tasted in conjunction with each of the matched canapes took another whole dimension of flavour and enjoyment. The chefs at Paulettes really know their business and the quality and freshness of the produce was completely first class. The two flights didn’t look like a huge amount of food but were more than adequate for the two of us without leaving feeling like we’d over-eaten or that we wanted more.
The tasting and canapes were just so good that we booked a table for lunch on our last day in Leasingham as an additional treat. When that day rolled around the lunch was just as good as the tasting and we also had an excellent table out on the deck looking out over the vineyards in the valley below. The wait staff at Paulettes were exceptionally good at making you feel comfortable and enjoy every aspect of the visit. There was no pretentiousness or ‘wine snobbery’ that you sometimes get in some wineries. THey were there to assure you of a good time and pleasant memories. They enjoyed working there!
There’s nothing bad to say about Paulettes… They are just simply bloody good! Top quality food, top quality wines, excellent staff, beautiful location. We both agree that this was the best food and wine experience of our trip!

Sevenhill Cellars

Continuing our seemingly never-ending wine tour in South Australia we drove out to Sevenhill Cellars which is owned and run by Jesuit priests. The vineyard is set on a massive estate that with a monastery, cathedral, winery and gardens. The Jesuits study there as a kind of retreat.

The winery is a massive old building with a truly impressive underground cellar with arching roofs and tunnels housing barrels of wine maturing in their own good time.
Before tasting we took a leisurely stroll around the property, despite the very cold conditions of the day, to view the cellars, the vineyard, a crumbling historic homestead being that is being preserved and a couple of small dry-stone chapels used by the Jesuits over the years. The entire estate just reeked of history.

The Cornish Pasty Hunt

Whilst in Sevenhill, we stopped in at The Little Red Grape, which was the sister cafe bakery to the one that was closed next door to our caravan park in Leasingham. Rob took a last chance to get a genuine Cornish Pasty but was once again disappointed although the pasty itself was quite generous and delicious. The pastry, once again was more flakey than short crust and the filling was good but a bit over-processed when compared to the rustic dice of the genuine Cornish Pasty.

Pikes Wines

Having enjoyed a Pikes Reisling back in Nuriootpa, we decided to drop into Pikes Wines, which are close to Sevenhill and Paulettes. We tried their range, which was good, but decided that their reisling was the pick of the range.

It was a pleasant tasting with a casual atmosphere and an interesting host. It was our last winery tasting in South Australia and we were probably at the point we had had our fill of wineries and were well and truly stocked up in the van and car…

On our first night in Leasingham we took a short drive out to Mintaro to the Magpie & Stump for dinner. It’s your typical South Australian country pub, first opened in 1850. Can’t sat it was the best pub meal ever but it wasn’t the worst either. It probably would have been much more enjoyable sitting in the beer garden area on a warm summer’s day listening to live music instead of a cold, damp winter’s night.

It wasn’t until later in our stay that we went back to Mintaro for an afternoon to visit the Mintaro Maze and Martindale Hall.

Mintaro Maze was a bit of a surprise. A delightful place for kids but also a bit of fun for us old fogeys as well. It is a large hedge style maze with a steel-walled extension area. As a maze it is not difficult to find your way around but you are gicen a sheet of questions to see if you can find the answers as you work your way around looking for various statues and signs. They also have large gnome garden as well as some topiary trees in the garden area.

Martindale Hall is a grand Georgian style square mansion with stately gardens and grounds a shot way outside Mintaro. The National Trust of South Australia is in a running battle with the former Liberal South Australian Government to keep it from being privatised (bloody Liberals!!!). It is probably most well known, despite being in South Australia, as the private girl’s school in the Australian classic film ‘Picnic At Hanging Rock‘, the events of which occur in Victoria.

You can pay to do a tour of Martindale Hall but at the time we decided that we had seen it from the outside and that that was sufficient on the day…

As a change from wineries we decided to take a drive out to The Cacscades. Located in Spring Gully Conservation Park this is a series of rock pools that spill into each other like a slow moving waterfall.

We were hoping that it would be a bit more impressive than it was, especially given that it had been raining fairly consistently. As it was it really was just a series of rock pools slowly spilling into each other. But with that said it was a very nice gorge with rough hewn sides showing the red-brown colours that were a hint of the things to come as we headed north into the outback.

It was also a nice walk out to The Cascades through Spring Gully Conservation Park through the bushy scrub land. Not the most spectacular of sights but worth a visit when you’ve reached peak wine tasting…

We took the opportunity to drive down to Auburn for diesel one day as there in no service station in Leasingham, the only other option being to go north to Clare. Auburn was also slightly cheaper at the time. There’s not much to Auburn, although it is regared as the Gateway to the Clare Valley and the start of the Riesling Trail.

Auburn‘s claim to fame is that it is the birthplace of C. J. Dennis, the noted Australian poet and journalist wrote, “The Songs Of A Sentimental Bloke.” The site behind the monument now holds a CWQ Meeting room, which is probably a fitting use for it.

The real gem in Auburn though was the bakery where Rob had the opporutinity to have a genuine South Australian ‘Pie Floater‘. The uniquely South Australian dish consisting of a meat pie with tomatoe sauce (usually optional) floating in the middle of a bowl of thick pea and ham soup. The Pie Floater can be difficult to find these days but is a true culinary delight when you do. Eaten with a spoon, it is genuine comfort food and on a cool, damp winter’s day, such as we had, is sheer perfection. This one was good!