Travel Guide Coober Pedy

An astonishing town of fewer than 1,600 inhabitants, established in 1915 845 kilometers north of Adelaide and 540 kilometers from Port Augusta, it is the state's opal mining capital. Its name comes from the Aboriginal kupa piti meaning "white man in a hole". Houses, stores, churches, bars and hotels are built underground, forming dugouts (literally "excavations") that provide escape from the sweltering heat of the desert in summer, and the very cold winter nights. For eight months of the year, temperatures fluctuate between 35°C and 57°C, with no shade and sandstorms. The rest of the time, it's freezing at night. The precious and expensive water is piped in from a borehole 25 km away on the Oodnadatta road, desalinated and redistributed. A water point operates 24 hours a day for tourists who need it in large quantities (for desert expeditions). Solar panels along the highway power the batteries that form part of the Telecom's fiber-optic system. Coober Pedy is inhabited by a strange community of some 50 different nationalities, including Aborigines (around 400 out of a total of 2,500). Since the first vein was discovered, the minefields have spread over 35 km to the north, 50 km to the south and 15 km to the west. The landscape is littered with hundreds of craters, shafts and cone-shaped mounds of earth. Lunar in appearance, it's a dangerous terrain of unfilled drill holes. Visitors are advised not to venture onto these fields outside guided tours, and never to walk backwards - for example, taking photos of these hallucinatory landscapes. In 1987, a new vein was discovered. A fine of AU$1,000 can be imposed on anyone who visits a private mine without being invited. Peter Cattaneo's excellent 2005 film Opal Dream(Le Secret de Kelly Anne) will give you a better understanding of life in the town today. Other films shot here include Ground Zero in 1987, Planète Rouge in 2000, Priscilla, folle du désert in 1994... On the way, take a look at the Big Winch, a giant winch measuring 8 metres by 2 metres, which offers a good view of the sunset, near the Old Timers Mine, one of the oldest mines in the region with interesting remains. Coober Pedy is served by the legendary Ghan train, which stops at Manguri, 47 km away.