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Consider carrying on past Woomera to the strangest two companion towns in Australia (a Stateliner bus goes from Woomera six nights a week). ROXBY DOWNS , 80km away, is completely modern, a service centre built in 1986 for miners working the copper, gold, silver and uranium deposits at the nearby Olympic Dam Mine (tours March-Nov daily 9.45am; 2hr 30min; $35; for bookings call Olympic Dam Tours information office, next to the BP service station on Olympic Way; tel 08/8671 0788). Another thirty minutes on an unsurfaced road, and you come to ANDAMOOKA , an opal -mining shantytown of block and scrap-iron construction whose red-earth high street becomes a river after it rains. The soil proved to be too loose for the underground homes which became de rigueur at Coober Pedy but mud lean-tos built in the 1930s are still standing opposite the post office. Facilities include fuel, a supermarket, the Tuckerbox Restaurant (11am-late), two hotel/motels, two campsites, and the Opal Creek Showroom which distributes maps and advice. If you fancy your luck "noodling", head to German Gully , where the local opal is more strongly coloured than Coober Pedy's, but little has been found for years. Olympic Dam Tours does a three-hour tour for $35. Lake Torrens , a sickle-shaped salt lake related to the Acraman meteorite, is another thirty-minute ride in a 4WD - in wet years bird-watchers find it a worthwhile trip to observe the waterfowl. The lake is also renowned in paleontological circles for traces of the 630-million-year-old Ediacaran fauna , the earliest-known evidence of animal life, which was first found in Australia and was possibly wiped out by the meteorite. Delicate fossil impressions of jellyfish, sea pens and obscure organisms are preserved in layered rock. The South Australian Museum in Adelaide has an extensive selection, but rarely issues directions to the site, which has been plundered by collectors since its discovery in 1946 by the geologist Reg Sprigg.
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