Opal capital of the world! - Coober Pedy

We've made it to this 3rd leg of our trip: our journey north trough the Australian Outback from Adelaide to Darwin. Well, actually, we started in Port Augusta, and we're already a week into our journey as I'm writing (spoiler!) But we did stay in Coober Pedy, and there's no escaping that Coober Pedy is all about opals. 

The landscape around Coober Pedy

About 60km south of Coober Pedy the first signs appear: watch out for mining machinery on the road. And about 30km south of town the molehills appear. From driving trough endless plains for the last few hundred kilometres, you suddenly drive through a bizarre landscape, soil turned and heaped. When you reach the turnoff into town, you've passed many warning signs, varying from 'no acces' to 'do not run' to 'don't walk backwards'. This, is mining country. 

Be careful?

We expected Coober Pedy to be not much more than a petrol station and some campsites, and very touristy of course. Which is partially true, but it has not 1 but 4 petrol stations! And 2 supermarkets. One of which sells mining equipment, chain saws and plastic flowers too. And it even has a roundabout! Imagine our surprise. 

Opal mine museum!

After we refuelled our campervan, we only had 10% left due to erroneous fuel consumption expectations, we parked at the Opal Inn Campground. We walked to the supermarket, passing the Opal Bar, the Opal Cave, the Umoona Opal Mine and the Opal Beetle on the way. They proudly advertise Coober Pedy as Opal Capital of the world! 

So on our way back we booked a Desert Tour at the Opal Inn. We spend the rest of the day soaking up the warmth of the winter desert sun. Just lovely.

Downtown Coober Pedy

We continued the next morning doing exactly the same thing, soaking up that lovely sun, since our tour started at 2pm, in order for the midday arrivals to join. No tourist stays voluntarily in Coober Pedy for more than one night, except for us of course, so tours cater for that. We were in a tour with mostly grey nomads ("Adventure before dementia"), but had fun.

 

Not claustrophobic at all

We started our tour with 30minutes at the opal shop, 100m from our campsite, where we became absolutely sure that we do not like opals. Then we drove another 20m to the opal mine and museum, where we saw some of the fossils, an underground (dugout) house, and then descended into a former mine that had been set up for tourism. Luckily that wasn't too claustrophobic, and certainly interesting.

Here the greens are blacks, and that hill is the first tee

We than drove via the golf course and one of the mining fields. Basically all the heaps are the contents of a shaft about 30m deep. Most shafts are about 50cm diameter, hence all the warning signs. The shafts are tests to see if that bit of land has opal. 

We then headed for the Breakaways. These are tabletop mountains, in the middle of endless plains, that used to be an inland sea in prehistoric times. The mountains look like the broke away from the rest. The colours are just amazing. You'd never imagine how many shades of yellow and red can be visible in rock formations. They reminded us a bit of the landscape at the Flaming Cliffs in the Gobi.

Breakaways

After we got cake and hot chocolate, we drove off to see the Dog Fence. This is one of the longest constructions on earth, built to keep dingos on the northern site of it, so sheep are safe south of it. It's incredibly more than 5.500km long, so pretty immense. And each section of the fence has its own custodian, and must be patrolled, and maintained if needed, every fortnight. But as fences go... It's not that impressive.

To get back to town we drove across the Moonplain. This was the ocean floor of that prehistoric sea. A barren landscape, apparently used in quite a few movies. I think it's time that I watched Mad Max 3? 

Barren Moonplain

Our final stop was the underground Serbian Orthodox Church. Because of the desert heat, many of the dwellings are underground. Or more exact, dugouts. Half of a hill is removed, and in the remainder a cave is made, usually with multiple rooms. The cave is decorated and equipped with amenities as electricity and running water, a facade is put in front of it, and there you have it: a classic Cooper Pedy dwelling. 

Living room of a dugout

These dugouts have a very constant temperature of 19-23'C, and thus far more comfortable than a traditional building. Walking through town you see chimneys and ventilation shafts sticking out of most of the hills. The churches are made much the same way, and the Serbian apparently is most impressive. And it was pretty special. 

Serbian Orthodox Church

The next morning we made sure we had enough water, and hit the road again, heading north!