Coober Pedy (population 3500) Opal Capital of the World

This outback town was established because of Opal mining.  A young chap called William Hutchinson found the first opals around 1920.  The returning soldiers from WWI joined the hunt for opals and using their trench making skills built shelters in the soft rock, known as ‘dug outs.  The local aboriginals called the set up kupa piti (white man in a hole), the English version of that phase ‘Coober Pedy’ then became the town’s name.  Now days half the town lives in dug outs and half in normal above ground houses.  If anyone has seen the first CARS movie then just visualise Radiator Springs and that’s Coober Pedy!

Coober Pedy (or it is Radiator Springs?)

It is very dry and hot, the only grass area is the schools playing field where they use the grey water to irrigate it.  We stayed at a camping ground with an inside pool (inside what looked like a water tank), the boys loved it for cooling down, but it was too cold for me!  The flies are something else, they go for your face as that’s where there is moisture, drove poor Enzo nuts!  Nichola the hat you made me was no deterrent, you basically need a net, but I am wearing the hat all the time (minus the hanging beads) because of the wide brim (and it makes me feel like a cowgirl), so thanks for that!!

The indoor pool at the Oasis Camping Ground

We went on a tour of the town with local guide Rudi (an ex-Austrian who has lived there for 40 years and was an opal miner).  He showed us the golf course (greens are sand sprayed with waste oil, the up side is there are no water hazards), the speedway, horse race track (a meet once a year) and the very cool Serbian underground church.  We also went noodling, that is scratching around the mullocky heaps (the excavated material) looking for opals, no luck to be had by us.  The final stop was an old opal mine where he took us down into the tunnels, very cool temperature down there, I can see why so many people live in the dug outs!

Leon noodlng on a mullocky heap!

John in a opal mine tunnel