January 30 – Coober Pedy – Opals and Underground Living

Today we flew to Coober Pedy, Opal Capital of the World and a really hot place to live and visit.  Apparently we are visiting at the hottest time of the year.  It wasn’t unbearable but it was pretty hot. 

We are staying in one of the underground hotels here in Coober Pedy.  Because of the extreme heat (often 110°F)  nearly 70% of the people live in underground homes, mostly dug into the side of hills, called dugouts.  And many of the business and hotels and such are underground as well.  One underground the temperatures stay around 73°F year-round.  Very comfortable, No air conditioning required.    The room walls and ceilings look beautiful with the raw sandstone.

After checking in to the hotel and a very quick lunch (a muffin) we were met by Jimmy, our guide and local character.  He has lived in the area for over 50 years and seems to have been involved in everything.  He is taking us on a town tour.  And it turns out there are a lot of eclectic things to see in CP.

First stop was the St. Elijah’s Serbian Church, and underground church with an adjacent underground house for the visiting priest and an underground parish all.  

We only visited the church but it was really beautiful.  The vaulted ceiling was multi-levels and was formed by the boring machines that they use to bore out mine tunnels.

Some of the statuary was carved right into the stone walls.  This one is of Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist.

We also drove by the sign to the new cemetery, called Boot Hill.

We also took a quick drive through the CP golf course.  It is 18 holes, par-72 and has no grass.  Players use a small piece of artificial turf to tee off and the greens have no grass.  They are black, oled down, raked sand (Golfers get to keep any opals they find).

An interesting factoid:  In its 600-year history, St. Andrews (the famous golf course in Scotland) has granted reciprocal playing rights to only one golf course in the entire world, the one in Coober Pedy. 

We also saw the dingo fence (also called the vermin fence).  The fence was built in the 1990’s to keep dingoes away from sheep.  It is 3488 miles long and is still maintained.  It’s one of the longest structures in the world.  According to Jimmy dingoes are “killing machines” that would go on rampages killing as many sheep as they could…eating only a small part of their kill.  So, on one side of the fence are sheep and cattle and on the other side is only cattle.  The cattle are generally too big for the dingoes to kill. 

They have installed dingo grids or guards where the roads go through the fence.  They are similar to cattle guards but much wider with the grates spaced much farther apart.

On our drive we saw many scattered rains showers in the distance.

Then we pulled into an area of opal fields where it looked like thousands of giant gophers were digging up the place…there are piles of rocks and sand everywhere.  

Opals are mined on relatively small claims…no open pit mines or massive underground mines.  Claims are limited to a 50 by 100 meter rectangle, and there are over 250,000 mine shafts in the area.  Shafts are drilled vertically.  If they hit some opal, then they will dig horizontally.

This photo shows the entrance to a mine that is lined with metal.  

The drive also took us to an area called the Kanku-Breakaways, a conservation park that is of significance to the Antakirinja Matuntjara Yankunytjjatjara and other aboriginal people.   

Besides just beautiful vistas and mountain ranges…

there were some interesting formations including the Salt and Pepper Hills,

the Sphinx

and the Sleeping Camel.

Some of the areas we drove through were almost featureless…flat as a pancake.

There was a small area that was covered with gypsum (mica) that sparkled when the sun hit the shards just right.  Very magical and hard to photograph.

We also spent time in what started out as a three-bedroom dugout home.  However, they kept finding opals so they kept drilling and the number of rooms eventually grew to over 20.  It is now a museum.  Some of it goes through the mining tunnels, complete with manikin miners.

And we got to see some of the opals still embedded in the walls of the cave.

Some of the rooms were set up like homes so you could see what the dugout homes look like.  Other than having no windows they are like pretty much any other home. 

And one room was set up as an early miners simple home.

When we got back to our room we discovered one of the down sides to living in a cave.  We found small bits of dust and rock scattered around the room and on the furniture and bedding.  While they "seal" the stone with lacquer it is not completely effective. The rock ceilings and/or walls continually shed small bits of dust and rock.  All part of the experience.