The Opal capital of the World

The lure of one of the worlds most most valuable gems (more expensive than gold) must be an amazing feeling and also a very lucrative living. I cannot think of any other reason that anyone would want to live out here in these conditions. Everywhere you look outside of the town square mile, there are verandahs poking out the side of hills with junk scattered everywhere around. With heat regularly soaring above 40 degrees and just as regularly down to 2 degrees in winter, and the underground rooms maintaining a constant 22-26 degree ambience, it makes sense. Also, because nobody has a yard when your home is dug into the side of a hill, all your hoarding has to live out the front.

I am sure there is some sort of planning rules governed by the local council, but to the untrained eye it appears that everybody simply lays claim to the side of a hill and starts digging. 

Every bit of machinery seems to be either 100 years old or a million hours used and is barely standing, never mind functional. If you don’t own a 4wd, you are a local. If you do own a 4wd, you are obviously a tourist and your car will be filthy. 

We took off down the Oodnadatta track late afternoon yesterday and stopped at the Moon fields (where Priscilla - Queen of the Desert and Mad Max III and Pitch Black were partly filmed), then along the Dog Fence to The Breakaways- a historical area where the sunset and views were spectacular. 

In some areas, it really did feel like we were on the moon. Except for the wind. The wind was howling, but just still bearable so that we could witness the spectacular sunset. 

Today was bus tour day. Despite visiting many of the underground main tourist attractions yesterday, we knew that there had to be more to understand this place. And I was very glad we did. Getting an understanding of just how extensive the underground living areas are, as well as the huge network of horizontal tunnels, made it worth while. Turns out the thousands of dirt hills that are oh so familiar, are not dug in hope of finding lots of opals, but instead they are looking for a seam that can then be followed at depths of anything up to 28m below today’s ground level. 

There are also at least 10 underground churches of all different denominations, of which we visited a couple. Some are always open and available for anyone to walk in and visit at any time. This could never be the case at home, but it appears here in Coober Pedy there is very minimal vandalism or other unsociable behaviour unless some “out of town” locals wander in, but they seem to be very quickly dealt with too. 

One of the stops was at the 3 hole golf course. Great care is taken to preserve the course with the most unusual aspect being a drop toilet in the middle of the greens - this is because there are no trees. 

Each hole has a nice green patch for you to tee off from, and number 1 is at the highest point giving perfect views of where you need to walk towards looking for your mis-hit ball. 

In the afternoon, we did a bit of our own exploring and even went to the underground pub where we had a cold brew and played some 8 ball with the kids. 

We have a big driving day tomorrow as we need to get to Alice Springs - nearly 700km away, with the inevitable “I need to Pee” stops (which never seem to coincide with fuel stops), and lunch, I am figuring we need close to 9 hours. 

There is even a high chance I am going to slide over into the passenger seat and pretend to be sleeping whilst Tracy drives for a little while. Maybe.