A big day exploring this very strange, but fascinating place. It’s very hard to describe to anyone who hasn’t been here. The landscape for miles in every direction is dotted with tiny little piles of pale pink colored tailings (dirt out of the mines), where thousands of people have tried their luck hoping to hit the big time, and find a good vein of opal.
The Big Winch lookout in the centre of town gives a birdseye view over the town. Today 50% of the town’s population live in houses underground (the temp is a stable 22-25 deg all year round, and with temps hitting the 50s in the summer I don’t blame them!). In 1920 opal was discovered and it was renamed Coober Pedy from the aboriginal words ‘kupa piti’ meaning ‘white man in a hole’. Very apt!
The population now is about 3500, with 60% people of European
heritage, representing 45 nationalities. The area is still very rich in many
kinds of opal and produces 85% of the worlds opal supply. There is a designated ‘public noodling/fossicking area’
where tailings from the surrounding mines are dumped, and anyone can have a go
at looking through the large piles of rock for opal. The kids were fascinated
by poking around in the dirt, and we all managed to find a little bit of color.
We visited the Old Timers Mine and did the underground tour
which was great. Donning miner’s hats we descended below the surface and saw
how the miners would dig down huge vertical shafts, then creating footholes for
themselves as they went, descended deep down into the earth, picking as they
went, looking for that elusive opal.
There was also a display of an underground
house, complete with fireplaces, kitchen, tv room, bedrooms - if you want another room in Cooper Pedy,
you just dig one out!
At the mine entrance is also a public noodling area where
Lily and I tried our luck. This was actually the best place in town to find
small pieces of colored opal, and I must say it bought back a lot of memories
from my childhood, where as kids we were carted around all over the place with
my gemstone fossicker/jewellery maker father, looking for crystals, gems and
opals. As a matter of fact, this very day he is in Yowah in outback Queensland,
doing just that!
We visited a couple of underground churches, cleverly dug
out of the rock, decorated with mining relics and precious stones. This one is
the Catholic church.
Well, one other thing you don’t see everyday is a desert golf
course. This well maintained course, is of course played over sand and dirt,
but does has clear teeoff points for every hole. Mmmmm….
The main street is lined with many opal shops (of varying
quality and some are more ‘outback’ than others). As you would expect, they
make their living from the thousands of tourists that flock here, so some of
them are very ‘hard sell’ as soon as you walk in the door.
Sadly, the aboriginal population is not seen in its best
light here, and many youths are lying around the public buildings, or shops. A
bit confronting for the kids, but part of life up here in the outback.
After obtaining a $10 permit from the Info Centre we drove 23kms
out to the Breakaways Reserve – an area of colourful low hills that rise up out
of the flat desert plains. There are a few lookout points including one called ‘The
Castle’ and ‘Salt & Pepper’ – see if
you can guess which is which…
We also viewed the dog fence, an amazing 2m wire mesh
barrier fence that stretches for over 5300kms across three states, to protect
the sheep country in the south from the native dogs (dingos). Today the
landscape was covered with tiny yellow wildflowers that stretched as far as the
eye could see, covering the moonscape-like plains that have been the setting for many movies such as Mad
Max and Ground Zero.
Well after all that, and maybe visiting just a few more opal
shops and aboriginal galleries, we arrived back at the caravan, where I thought
we were all going to have a rest, and then have some dinner. But, Sam was soon
begging his dad to take him back to do some more fossicking in the public noodling area (looks like he’s
been bitten by ‘opal fever’!).
Looks like you had a great time in Coober Pedy. We loved the Breakaways. Surprised you had to pay to enter though.
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