Coober Pedy is a place like no other! The hard copy Lonely Planet guidebook describes it in a more unfavourable way than their website which just states ‘it is in an inhospitable environment where rainfall is scant, so even in the middle of winter the town looks dry and dusty, and water is expensive. You could never describe the town as attractive. In fact, it looks a bit like the end of the world.’ Well, we were there after a season of high rainfall so there was some green around but it was still dry and dusty! But a very interesting place to visit. 80% of the town’s 3500 residents still live underground. And there is still lots of people mining for opals – and regulations state that the miners are not allowed to fill in their holes once they have mined so there is about 2.5 million shaft holes scattered around with piles of rubble beside them. We visited a ‘working’ mine (although I think the ‘working’ is for the tourist’s sake), an underground house and 2 underground churches. And drove around and marvelled at the old cars, trucks and just about any junk you can think of sitting around rusting.
On the drive into Coober Pedy we detoured and visited The Breakaways which were much like the Painted Desert, drove alongside the Dog Fence and saw the Moon Plains – a desolate area where lots of Hollywood movies have been filmed.
Although it was interesting and Coober Pedy is a must for anyone travelling through the Australian Outback, a couple of nights was enough for me and I marvel at the fact that one of my closest friends lived here for 10 years as a child!!
