In the efforts of not naming and shaming this hotel, I will call it the *Cave Hotel.
We made it, 475kms straight up the middle of Australia and we arrived in Coober Pedy.
I was filled with excitement as I had not yet informed my brood of the absolute luxury I had planned for them.
A twin room suite, dug out into the hillside, underground rooms, refreshingly cool from the outside, delightful warm outdoor swimming pool, the worlds only underground bar, a lovely opal shop and gourmet buffet breakfasts await us, well the brochure and website says so, so what's not to get excited about.
We drive into the open plains of Coober Pedy, a truck on the road announces the arrival of the town, complete with opal mining equipment attached to the back of it.
You can't miss our luxurious hotel as you enter the town, the brochure says.
We enter the township of Coober Pedy and are met with a group of bedraggled aboriginal men slowly dragging themselves across the road with a case of beer on one shoulder and an old tape player on the other with the power lead still attached and dragging along behind them.
A group of dark skinned ladies are sitting in the dirt on the next bend - some with their bosoms out, hanging limply around their waists. A naked child is screaming in the dirt next to them and a dog with nipples touching the ground scoots past them.
On the next corner is a skinny aboriginal man sitting in the dirt, fully dressed in filthy clothes, trousers and underpants wrapped around his ankles, bare bum in the dirt, leaning against a wall.
The children's eyes begin to open wider and Dal and I look at each other wondering if we have made a good choice.
Ah well, it's an experience that makes up the history and culture of our country, lets see what unfolds.
Knowing we are staying underground but not much more, on the way up the youngest expressed concerns over her new slippers being worn it the room. When I ask what her concern is, I realise she is expecting to stay in a dust filled dirty old cave. I quietly chortle to myself eagerly awaiting her delighted surprise.
We pull up at the front and it certainly looks the part so far, the kids are excited and still wanting to keep my surprise secret I tell them to wait whilst I check in. I can't wait to see their faces as they enter their own private dugout.
I flounce into the foyer and announce myself, the staff member who appears fresh out of some Indian descent, wiggles his head side to side and says "Oh, Good afternoon to you, madam".
Well, that was unexpected, but ok, all adds to the multicultural experience.
"Here you are ma'am" he says and hands me 2 sets of keys on opposite sides of the complex.
What?
"No, I'm sorry, you have that incorrect, we booked a suite, with 1 main door and 2 bedrooms, please recheck"
"Oh, yes, madam, I am now seeing that you in fact did book that room, but we only are having one of those and I have been giving one of those rooms to a couple that checked in yesterday and they will be staying in that room tonight" he smiles at me, "OK?"
"No, not OK, I cannot put my children in a separate room on the other side of the hotel away from us".
At this point I realise that I am possibly speaking to a man that has siblings that always blamed him for everything as he very stubbornly announces loudly "it's not my fault, I didn't do it".
I can imagine him stamping his feet firmly in the dirt and proudly proclaiming this statement of every comment that was ever made towards him throughout his childhood. Most unexpectedly, I realise that like a child I too have to guide this person to assist me.
"I'm not saying its your fault, but I am saying I cannot have the children away from us, what can you do to fix this?" I query.
He shrugs and replies "I can send you away and book you into someone else's hotel".
"No, I mean what can you do for us here?"
After great deliberations and discussions we end up in side by side rooms tonight and the chosen room promised for tomorrow night.
We enter the hotel corridor (directly from the car park and straight into the rooms), hmmm, I was kind of expecting that we'd go underground at least a little and perhaps it wouldn't be open to the main car park and road.
Oh well, lets make the most of it!
*Sahid (not his real name, and no disrespect intended) appears and tries his best to convince us that the rooms are better this way. He explains if they were to dig straight down they could get flooded and once again announces that this hotel is "the very best you can get ma'am".
As we enter the room, little Miss accidentally lets the door slam before we have found the light switch and there we are, in total blackout. The room is eerily quiet and I daren't make comment that I hope there's nothing under the bed or in the bathroom. It's darker than dark, it's blacker than coal in a tar pit and rather than being refreshing, it's kind of muggy.
Scraping around in the darkness, looking for a key, a door, a light switch or perhaps just a warm body to snuggle into I find myself in a secret embrace. Oh my goodness, with kids around, especially home schooled ones, these moments are far and few between, it's lovely. I begin to think this trip could be fantastic, I melt! Boom - every light in the place goes on, it's like being under spotlights at the MCG.
My eyes are wider than a rabbit in the headlights, little one proudly announces "found the lights folks", then eyes us rather suspiciously and asks "umm, what exactly were you two doing just then?".
We agree to leave the room doors ajar so although they are in the next room they can come and go as they like.
Alas, short of having Mike Tyson on hand as our personal busboy, if that door closes, no one is going to be able to open it.
We wedge the chock of wood in it, that allows it to remain open about 6cms, that should do it.
After dinner, shower, bed time games, it is time for them to sleep. Thank goodness, we pop the kettle on Dal strips naked eagerly heading for the shower to freshen up. Just then the door is flung open, with a cry of Dadddeeeeeey. Dal manages to grab his jocks and fling them back on, just as a overweight, gum chewing, chain smoking German tourist lady walks by. She stops in her tracks, peers through the crack in the door, gives Dal a foul look and tut tuts away.
Note to self, must not have been all that bad a view as she didn't move on too quickly.
No sooner has the little one been settled yet again than theres a noise at the door, sighing I get up and peering back at me are 2 beady red eyes and a large snout. Nose sniffing up and down the door, hackles raised are 2 canines closely resembling Hell hounds. I scream to Emma not to open her door but to push it shut, the slam startles them and aroused by my voice they swing around from her door and head straight back to me.
Now it's my hackles that have raised and a chill goes through my body, what time warp crack has now opened and allowed these demon creatures to enter, "shoo shoo" I yell at them.
Now I don't speak dog very well, but I think this is the equivalent of "come here I have a free tasty treat for you", leaping at the door, they were now eagerly wagging their tails and keener than mustard to enter.
When I awoke from my near dead faint, the corridor was empty.
Dal decided we all needed a cool drink and bundled us up to the worlds only underground bar. The manager served us with a shrug saying "bloody bar staff didn't turn up for work".
The drinks were refreshing and cool, obviously not wanting to deal with the outside heat, the air conditioner was elegantly set to sub arctic blast.
As we emerged back into the foyer I think I heard a snap as one of the kids arms shattered off and smashed on the floor.
Of course, once the patrons are full of alcohol, they need to walk past the opal shop, where for just $9999999000 you too can have a 5mm opal pendant.
As night falls we flop into bed, Dal sitting cross legged to read a while, the slight crack was almost unheard as the roof released its first dirt bomb of the night. A puzzled look on his face, his lap is full of dirt and the surrounding bed covers scattered with dust.
Laugh, I nearly wet myself.... And so did he when I awoke with an eye and ear full and the side of my face brown with dirt.
The third time we woke, we deduced it must be time to get up, we whispered to each other, what if its 11am and we can't tell in the dark. Rolling over, the mobile phone said 2.20am.
By now we are hot, the dirt mingling with sweat and starting to make us look a little like the locals we first encountered upon arrival. Never mind, there may be no air conditioning but there is a fan.
Dal flounders around and finds the remote, it starts up and begins its attack on the room, whoomp, whoomp, creak, eeek, whistle, groan, whoosh, grunt.
These aren't fans, they are recycled jet air propellers or at the very least helicopter blades disguised as air moving mechanisms.
All dirt and sweat is blown backwards making red mud wind wiggles up our body, now we are decorated and ready for the corroboree. Plop, another pile of dirt lands on the bed, Dal rolls over and whispers "Good Morning Vietnam".
And there we lay at 3am cacking and giggling into the darkness, exhausting ourselves with silliness.
5.50am, we are awoken from our fitful slumber by an insanely loud telephone. It is the loudest noise we have ever heard, somewhere there is an alarm going off and it's right next to our heads, we leap out of bed, disoriented, trying to find the light, the door, the key, the telephone, anything, we wheel around and crash into each other in the darkness, hearts racing we find the phone lead, wiggle up to the handset and shout "hello", click!
We turn the lights on, switch on the apocalypse now fan and call reception. Sahid answers, I can almost hear his head wiggle, "It was not me, ma'am it is not being my fault".
We flop back down on the bed and theres a click in the door, "good morning mummy".
Washing the trails of red dirt from our body we stagger to breakfast, the manager is cooking as "no bloody waiting staff turned up for work yet again".
Bleary eyed I make my way to the toilet.
Now I know we do not have rattlesnakes in Australia, common sense tells you that, but when you are half asleep, senses on overload, sometimes common sense does not come into it.
So as I enter and something at the room hisses loudly at me, you move fast.
It was only as I was hanging by my fingernails from the roof that I noticed on the top shelf the automatic air freshener, set to give a burst whenever it detected movement.
Well that explains why it now smells like one of those tablets in a men's urinal.
The manager did his best to make the rest of our stay pleasant. We were swapped into the suite we booked, we took an amazing desert tour with them, they gave us free bar vouchers and arriving back after a long day tour, there were gifts of wine and opals in our room and chocolates and opal jewellery in the kids room. Most of the staff (especially the manager running around everywhere) knew us by name and we were made to feel like honored guests.
Knowing I am a travel writer for a publicity website, every time I spoke to the manager, he would pass his hand in front of me like a Jedi knight and say "you have no story here".
All was well, the suites were cooler and we had a fresh nights sleep with only a very few roof bombs.
Although, we did notice that a part of the wall near the bed and bathroom was missing and we wondering if some wayward tourists had gone opal hunting in the privacy of their own room.
We joked that maybe they had reported to management that parts of their room had just simply 'fallen' off during the night, oh and if that was the case, then perhaps they may complain that their cutlery in the room was all bent and dinged up too and looked like someone had been digging rocks with it.
We had an amazing stay at Coober Pedy, the people are quirky and eccentric, the sights amazing and the opal beautiful, we finished off our journey over breakfast getting ready for the long drive to Hahndorf and I forgot about the previous day and forgot of course there are no rattlesnakes in Australia as we all hurried for a last minute bathroom stop.
*name changed to protect hotel privacy
