The Breakaways
Just before getting to Coober Pedy the landscape is full of pale coloured, conical earth mounds as far as the eye can see. They look a little like Bedouin tents in the desert, but are actually dirt and gravel heaps from mining or probe holes of the vast opal fields. The town itself seems underwhelming and one could be tempted to just keep on driving. However there is a lot more to Coober Pedy than meets the eye.
"Coober Pedy” are aboriginal words for “white men living underground”, and, as a matter of fact, for two thirds of the population this is true. What is seen above ground is only a small portion of the town. There are many homes, motels and old mines underground. Since 1975 mining inside the town’s confines is prohibited. However, people who have bought land and dug into the hills to make their homes, have found quite a bit of opal in doing so. In one case, a man kept on digging out more rooms as he found another and another of the precious stone. He ended up with 21 rooms, all financed by his incidental findings.
Like in every mining town there are amazing stories being told, some true others told with poetic freedom.
A true story is the one of Faye Nayler, a Queensland woman, who single handedly dug out and worked a mine in the 1960s. She not only worked the pick axe and shovel, but also climbed up and down the long shaft using small foot holds in the rock, and then winched the heavy buckets filled with rocks to the surface. Faye obviously found enough, and build a nice home with the help of two female friends - underground of course! When mining in town was stopped in 75, she opened up her home to tourists.
(kitchen in Faye’s home)
Near the town there are still working mines. New opal seams are found in formerly abandoned mines with the help of modern equipment. Today the miners use electric cutting machines, diesel blowers to transport rocks to the surface and UV lights, which highlight even the smallest opal seams inside a rock shelf. One of these mines is Tom’s Opal Mine. Tom sold the mine after blowing his own hand off while demonstrating the use of explosives. However, he must have made a fortune - though miners never tell how much they find - as he once owned half of the city's buildings. The current owner miner took us on a tour and illuminated areas of opal within the tunnel walls with his blacklight torch which were before invisible to the naked eye. He also let the kids, including Austin, drill out a small section of rocks containing specks of opal.
We found some other local treasures:
Just North of town are the Breakaways, colourful limestone hills and desert plains. This picturesque area was used by film makers in movies like “Pitch Black” and “Priscilla” for example.
Along the moonscape like area runs the 5300 km dog fence. This wire mesh fence has joined individual fences together to stop dingos and other wild dogs eroding the valuable Australian sheep farming industry.
There are also several underground churches in Coober Pedy. We liked the Serbian Church St. Elijah with its stainless windows.
Enjoying the coolness and atmosphere of the dug outs, we booked ourselves into one of the underground motels.
It wasn’t at all claustrophobic as we expected! The room was quite big and airy and had a breakfast corner and computer desk.
The windowless darkness and total quietness made for a really great night’s sleep.
There isn’t much of entertainment in Coober Pedy. But once a week on a Saturday the drive-in cinema shows a movie, and we were lucky to be there for it! A beautiful sunset was the wonderful prelude to the movie “Gifted”.
Of course there is also the local scrabble evening or one can spend hours perusing Crocodile Harry’s dug -out with memorabilia and inscriptions from around the world. Harry was a true crocodile hunter turned miner, an interesting carrier path!