Coober Pedy , what do we say?
Definitely a unique place – have not seen any place like it before. Coober Pedy is known for its opal mining – 80% of all opals mined in the world come from Coober Pedy. The landscape surrounding Coober Pedy is covered with mullock heaps (discarded sandstone that has been removed from the ground when mining). It is illegal to backfill the holes so instead of removing the heaps they remain on the ground!! These mounds combined with trucks with an unusual contraption behind them (vacuums used to suck the sandstone out of the ground) and aerials and pipes across the ground (from dugouts – underground homes) make for a VERY unattractive view!
About half of the people living in Coober Pedy live underground, where the temperature is a consistent 24 degrees all year round. Coober Pedy gets very hot so a pretty good way to avoid the heat. Not only are there many underground homes, a lot of the buildings are underground too. We did a brilliant town tour with Rudy – a 76 year old Austrian who was an opal miner for 50 years and quiet a character. Plus we had him all to ourselves on the bus. He took us to the Greek Orthodox Church which is underground. It was such a beautiful church, hard to believe it was under the ground. We then went “noodling” – sifting through extracted sandstone for opals that the miners have missed. Not much luck finding opals but the kids had fun. We went into an old underground opal mine and an underground home. Beside the lack of windows the underground home was just like any other home – not as claustrophobic as we thought it would be, but still not sure if I could live underground!
30kms north of Coober Pedy are The Breakaways – colourful low hills that have broken away from the Stuart Range which were once part of the ocean floor. Two of the Mad Max movies were filmed here. Simon and the kids had great fun fossicking for fossils, which they all managed to find.
Unfortunately the caravan park we stayed at was not too flash. We were all crammed into one area as part of the park was closed for renovations. This we could handle, but the leaking sewerage we could not!! As a result we have awarded the Stuart Range Caravan Park Coober Pedy the “worst caravan park” award!! Needless to say we, especially Donna were not sad when we left.
Great sunset though!
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| Coober Pedy Sunset |
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| Underground Church |
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| "Noodling" for opals |
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| Underground home |
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| Old underground opal mine |
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| Coober Pedy town |
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| Opal mine vacuum |
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| The Breakaways |
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| The fossickers |
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