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Coober Pedy is a small town in northern South
Australia, 850 kilometers north of Adelaide on the Stuart Highway. On
the surface, the place looks pretty deserted.
A treeless plain on the edge of the Stuart Ranges, with a few sparsely
spaced houses, a couple of inns and restaurants, a police station, a
school and a hospital further north.
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But that’s only half the town. The other half lives underground in
spacious caves and tunnels called “dugouts” where the town’s residents
have built homes, hotels, restaurants, bars, churches and more.
Coober Pedy was established in 1915 following the discovery of opal by a
14-year old boy who was camping with his father's gold prospecting
party. Within a few years hundreds of prospectors were tearing up the
turf.
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But people who flocked here to mine the previous stones soon discovered
life above ground was pretty tough. In the summer, the temperature often
exceeds 40 degrees Celsius. On these hot days, the relative humidity
rarely gets over 20%, and the skies usually remained cloud-free.
To escape the scorching daytime temperatures, the residents began to
live underground. The early Coober Pedy houses were built in the holes
that had already been dug in search for opal.
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Modern homes are dug into the hill sides and include all the amenities
of an above-ground home including living rooms, kitchens, walk-in
closets, bar and cellar. The entrance is usually at street level, and
the rooms extend towards the back into the hill. All the rooms are
ventilated with a vertical shaft, keeping the temperature regulated.
This ingenious style of living was introduced by soldiers returning from
the First World War to prospect from opal mining.
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Coober Pedy was originally known as the Stuart Range Opal Field, named
after John McDouall Stuart, who in 1858 was the first European explorer
in the area. In 1920 it was re-named Coober Pedy, an anglicised version
of Aboriginal words "kupa piti", which is assumed to mean "white man's
hole".
Today Coober Pedy is the leading supplier of gem-quality opal, producing
the bulk of the world's white opal.
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The town has over 70 opal fields and is the largest opal mining area in
the world.
There is a local golf course - mostly played at night with glowing
balls, to avoid daytime temperatures.
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It’s completely free of grass and golfers take a small piece of "turf"
around to use for teeing off. The lack of grass hasn’t discouraged them
to put up this sign in the golf course though.
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