14. Coober Pedy

Coober Pedy is an opal mining town in South Australia. One of the things that the town is famous for is the underground houses which are called ‘dugouts’. These are houses built underground or into the side of hills. As they are underground they stay very cool in the hot summers. We were there in winter and the daytime temperature was above 30 degrees. Summer must be unbearable - no wonder they dug their houses under the ground. We had booked the caravan in for a scheduled service in Coober Pedy, and when we got there the mechanic pointed out that one of the caravan tyres was bald. This was due to an alignment issue. The mechanic in Coober Pedy did the best he could, and then we drove 640 km to the nearest centre which could perform a wheel alignment on a caravan.

Coober Pedy: They are nothing if not grand about their brand

Coober Pedy: Arriving into the 'Opal Town'

Coober Pedy: The symbol for the town is the blower truck, though, as per the photo below which explains the blower truck, it is actually a giant vacuum for extracting earth out of the mine when digging a mine

Coober Pedy: Explaining the blower truck

Coober Pedy: Some blower trucks around the place which look like they were extras in a  Mad Max movie

Coober Pedy: Some blower trucks around the place which look like they were extras in a  Mad Max movie

Coober Pedy: Surely this thing was left over from a Mad Max movie

Coober Pedy: There are numerous underground hotels

Coober Pedy: We stayed in an underground (dugout) house which we booked through Airbnb. This is our main bedroom. 

Coober Pedy: The whole landscape is just piles of dirt which have been dug up in the hunt for opals. You can register a claim and go mining. There is apparently still a lot of opal to be found. There are no big mining companies, just individual and small groups of prospectors

Coober Pedy: The drive in has been a central feature to community life in Coober Pedy. A few years ago the screen was blown off in a storm. They expect to have it back and operational within the year

Coober Pedy: We did a bit of 'noodling', which is fossicking through the dug up earth piles. The name comes from 'wet noodle', which is someone who is not man enough to go underground to mine...

Coober Pedy: There are two very good tours in town. Here Millie is at Tom's mine which shows you through an opal mine

Coober Pedy: This is what opal looks like when found in a seam (level) in a wall. There is a UV light shining on the sandstone wall which helps highlight and find the opal

Coober Pedy: During the tour at Tom's mine, the children find opal along the way. At the end, the owner, Paul, trades the opals with the children. The children have to bargain with Paul (as the buyer) to sell their opals - they can bargain for a combination of money, chocolate and lollipops. I needed to sit with Millie to give her some support, but she did all of the bargaining

Coober Pedy: Millie bargaining with Paul for the sale of the opals that she found on the tour

Coober Pedy: This is the Old Timer's mine tour. This is an original hand dug mine and house. It is just remarkable how hard it must have been to mine like this

Coober Pedy:  A common sign around Coober Pedy

Coober Pedy: One of the tires on our caravan as we arrived into Coober Pedy. We are lucky that it did not blow out. The mechanic (you can see his legs) did a great job of manually aligning the wheel so as we could get to Port Pirie (630 km away) where they have a truck wheel alignment service (needed to do an alignment for a caravan)

Coober Pedy: Goodbye Coober Pedy. Due to needing to wait a few days for the appointment in Port Pirie for the caravan wheel alignment, we ended up staying in Coober Pedy a couple of extra nights. It worked out well because it is such an interesting place