Sunday, 8 April 2012

Coober Pedy Opal Festival - April 7, 2012


On Easter Saturday a few people from my team at work were asked to help out at the Coober Pedy Opal Festival.   This event was partially sponsored by OzMinerals, so 12 of us got on a mini bus and drove 2 hours from site to Coober Pedy to represent the company.


Now for some fun facts about the town!  80% of all opals worldwide come from Coober Pedy, and I believe they're lighter in colour than the other opals.  Also, parts of the town are built underground and many of the houses are built into the sides of hills.  Other than that, it is a very rough and basic town in the middle of the desert.

Our day started with a stop at the local pizza shop, which is exciting because that's the main craving people get when they work on a mine site.  While my pizza was cooking I ducked into the underground opal shop/museum.

By "underground" they mean "in a hill."

After lunch I also quickly checked out one of the underground hotels, which seemed like a major scam.  Some of the rooms were actually underground, but the rest of it just had fake rock walls.


To kick off the festivities we watched the Easter/Opal Festival parade.  It started with a guy running and carrying a fist-sized opal that they had found in the past 12 months.  This is an annual tradition.  Next came a wide variety of floats, including a mermaid/under the sea one and a tribute to Michael Jackson float.

Our crew was giving the kids on the floats OzMinerals balloons, which they seemed to enjoy.

Many kids in the parade were throwing chocolate eggs, so I got my Easter treats after all!

After the parade we went to the OzMinerals Oval (yes, we sponsored that too) where the festivities were taking place.  Throughout the day we helped with many of the competitions.  My favourite one of the day (that we didn't help with) was the kids boxcar races.  I cannot explain how cute they all were, so here are some pictures.

The kid on the far right decorated his boxcar as a redback spider - legs and all! 

Why wasn't I this cute as a child?!  I certainly don't think I ever had a matching hat with my mom.  She's almost as cute as my sister, and that's saying a lot!

Later we helped with some regular races, a tug of war, a throwing contest, and the "sack of opals" competitions.  The group had to hold the sack straight out in front of them for as long as possible.  It was super fun to watch and cheer them on, and it was much harder than you would expect.

The guy second from the left won.  You should have seen their biceps trembling!

I know it looks like we're playing soccer, but we're actually retrieving/marking distances as the competitors throw "sticks of dynamite" at us.  I don't look nearly as silly as I usually do when I run!

The final event of the day was a hilarious obstacle course, and the winners were crowned Opal King and Queen.

After a great day of "helping" a local community, we rode home exhausted from all of the fun.  Is there really any better way to spend a day at work? 

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