When you come into Coober Pedy you notice its dusty streets and opal shops. After a bit of exploration you start to notice the vents in the tops of the hills and the doors and car parking spots carved out of the side of various hills in the area. Then moving further out to the open areas outside of the town you see a whole fields with small mounds of mullock and a lot of difficult to see but very deep mineshafts.
Coober Pedy is a nice town that was built around opals and there are still opals being found there. The shop we went into to do a mine tour had a pocket of opals in one wall that was thought to be worth a minimum of $20,000. The main problem with opal mining is not the dust from chiselling away at the walls of a mine, and the fumes from using explosives while still underground but that 90% of opals are only potch type which doesn’t have any colours and is completely worthless no matter how big it is!
The most interesting thing about Coober Pedy in my opinion is its underground shops, churches, hotels and houses. Most of Coober Pedy’s population lives underground where it stays between 20 and 25 degrees all year round so there is no need for heating and cooling systems that would usually be necessary in a place that has hot days and cold nights.
Coober Pedy is an excellent place to visit with plenty to do and lots of fascinating places to stay, like the underground motel and an underground camping ground. It was a great place that I would have liked to stay longer at.
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