It's a long
road to Coober Pedy
Trying to write a note to you
You can tell by the shaky hands
It's not an easy thing to do
You can see by the smudgy paper
there's bulldust in the air
There's no piece of cake on a gravel road
to write you that I care
But the government will
tar the road by 1988
But for poor old Bob and his trucky mates
It's at least ten years too late
Still it got us to where they mine
Those sparkling milky jewels
Where men can strike it rich
Where fate has struck at fool
Well, we drank and talked to the locals
And ate at the Opal Inn
The vegetable soup I'm
pleased to say
Wasn't out of a heated tin
And the bowls were more like gold pans
And boy, the broth was great
It reminded me of my grandma,
so I ordered another plate
In a dusty gleam -to -town,
with a dusty digger's face
Where you can find an opal, Eddie,
you can stand the pace
Where you can be a miner
no matter what your race
Where you can dig a hole
and live and die without a trace
Well the bloke at the local garage
knew the town he now despised
He said it really had character,
but now it's all commercial
Well I'm blood if I could see it,
it had a hell of a way to go
But his petrol was dear as poison,
so I guess he ought to know
In a dusty lean -to town,
with a dusty digger's face
Where you can find an opal,
if you can stand the pace
Where you can be a miner
no matter what your age
Where you can dig a hole
and live and die without a trace
Well the blacks call
them whitefella burrows
Like anthills everywhere
And blowers pop through those
sandstone dumps
Lookin' like hammerheads in the air
In the middle of nothing but saltbush
It's alien and it's rare
There's no piece of cake on a gravel road
To write you that I care
In a dusty lean -to town
With a dusty figure's face,
where you can find an opal
If you can stand the place,
where you can be a miner
No matter what your race,
where you can dig a hole
We'll live and die without
dreams