Sunday, July 31, 2005
Day 15 - 31/07/05 Kulgera, Northern Territory (NT).
Most of our afternoon and the evening yesterday was spent with Dinesh and Geeta, the doctor couple from India who are at the Coober Pedy hospital. So we hadn't actually seen the sights around town. We decided to spend the morning taking a quick look around before heading off to Alice Springs. We went up to the Big Winch which is a lookout point and took in the views of Coober Pedy. With all the mounds of earth in conical piles scattered around the area reminded us of ant nests. If you can remember how ants make a conical pile of earth outside their underground nests, and then imagine you were much smaller than the ant, and surrounded by these huge piles, that's what you'll feel like in Coober Pedy.
We did a round of the underground churches in Coober Pedy. We visited the Catacomb church, an underground Anglican Church. It was Sunday and so a congregation had met. Later we dropped in at the underground Catholic church.
This is a nice and cosy church and here also a service was in progress. So we sat down. Everything was going like normal until the priest came forward to give communion to the people. He came forward and stood at the edge of the altar. Beside him nonchalantly trotted and then sat a little terrier! He sat there patiently while communion was being given, supervising the procedure. Then when the priest returned to his usual place behind the table, the terrier went to a side and sat there watching the proceedings. After the service when the priest walked down the aisle to leave the church, the little fellow dutifully trotted out with him. Never seen a deacon who was a terrier before! Coober Pedy is definitely not your everyday place!
After the Underground Catholic Church, we decided to drop in at the Serbian Orthodox church. Here too a service was in progress, and as it was in Serbian we couldn't understand a word. It is an Orthodox church, and all the priests and celebrants were dressed in grand glittering clothes. The Church itself was so much more grander than any of the others we had seen that day. It had a high ceiling, with a tri-foil vault. And the altar had a wooden partition and stained glass artwork. It was quite an awesome place.
After the service we drove by the Coober Pedy golf course, which didn't have a blade of grass!
It was the same dry stony ground. Around the hole was more moist looking soil, which had been neatly raked, and the hole and flag planted in the middle of this. What a sight it made. And they had the standard 'please keep off the grass' sign too! It was noon, and though we felt like wandering around a little bit more we had to head off. Alice Springs was 785 km away. We needed to get there to have the car fixed. We drove for the rest of the day, and stopped at 6.30 when we got to Kulgera. On the way we passed a dog, which was running towards us in the middle of the road, looking lost and anxious. We stopped, and he stopped too and looked back at us. We called to him, but he just stood and looked at us uncertainly. Then deciding that we weren't who he was looking for, he continued, but kept looking over his shoulder at us. We got into the car and started to drive but couldn't bear to leave him there and went back to try and give him some food and water. By then he'd got off the road. he was the same colour as the earth and we just couldn't spot him. I think he might have been abandoned by his owners. he was a big dog, and maybe they couldn't manage him.
The landscape along the way had a lot more vegetation. Its greener, but not the same green as comes to mind when one things of plants. These plants are much paler, the green more an ash colour with a green tinge. But the creeks were all dry. The soil at times was very sandy, and a rich red-orange. The temperature was very pleasant though, which is because of the time of year, Inside the car its starting to get hot and sweaty though, on long drives.
Most of our afternoon and the evening yesterday was spent with Dinesh and Geeta, the doctor couple from India who are at the Coober Pedy hospital. So we hadn't actually seen the sights around town. We decided to spend the morning taking a quick look around before heading off to Alice Springs. We went up to the Big Winch which is a lookout point and took in the views of Coober Pedy. With all the mounds of earth in conical piles scattered around the area reminded us of ant nests. If you can remember how ants make a conical pile of earth outside their underground nests, and then imagine you were much smaller than the ant, and surrounded by these huge piles, that's what you'll feel like in Coober Pedy.
We did a round of the underground churches in Coober Pedy. We visited the Catacomb church, an underground Anglican Church. It was Sunday and so a congregation had met. Later we dropped in at the underground Catholic church.
This is a nice and cosy church and here also a service was in progress. So we sat down. Everything was going like normal until the priest came forward to give communion to the people. He came forward and stood at the edge of the altar. Beside him nonchalantly trotted and then sat a little terrier! He sat there patiently while communion was being given, supervising the procedure. Then when the priest returned to his usual place behind the table, the terrier went to a side and sat there watching the proceedings. After the service when the priest walked down the aisle to leave the church, the little fellow dutifully trotted out with him. Never seen a deacon who was a terrier before! Coober Pedy is definitely not your everyday place!After the Underground Catholic Church, we decided to drop in at the Serbian Orthodox church. Here too a service was in progress, and as it was in Serbian we couldn't understand a word. It is an Orthodox church, and all the priests and celebrants were dressed in grand glittering clothes. The Church itself was so much more grander than any of the others we had seen that day. It had a high ceiling, with a tri-foil vault. And the altar had a wooden partition and stained glass artwork. It was quite an awesome place.
After the service we drove by the Coober Pedy golf course, which didn't have a blade of grass!
It was the same dry stony ground. Around the hole was more moist looking soil, which had been neatly raked, and the hole and flag planted in the middle of this. What a sight it made. And they had the standard 'please keep off the grass' sign too! It was noon, and though we felt like wandering around a little bit more we had to head off. Alice Springs was 785 km away. We needed to get there to have the car fixed. We drove for the rest of the day, and stopped at 6.30 when we got to Kulgera. On the way we passed a dog, which was running towards us in the middle of the road, looking lost and anxious. We stopped, and he stopped too and looked back at us. We called to him, but he just stood and looked at us uncertainly. Then deciding that we weren't who he was looking for, he continued, but kept looking over his shoulder at us. We got into the car and started to drive but couldn't bear to leave him there and went back to try and give him some food and water. By then he'd got off the road. he was the same colour as the earth and we just couldn't spot him. I think he might have been abandoned by his owners. he was a big dog, and maybe they couldn't manage him.The landscape along the way had a lot more vegetation. Its greener, but not the same green as comes to mind when one things of plants. These plants are much paler, the green more an ash colour with a green tinge. But the creeks were all dry. The soil at times was very sandy, and a rich red-orange. The temperature was very pleasant though, which is because of the time of year, Inside the car its starting to get hot and sweaty though, on long drives.
