Coober Pedy is the opal capital of the world and an underground city. Australia

Coober Pedy – small town underground in Australia, which is located in the central region of the country. It received the title of the opal capital of the world thanks to the huge deposits of these minerals, which shine in rainbow colors. There are approximately 30% of all opal deposits on the planet. No place on Earth can compare with it in this indicator.

This mining town is also known for its unusual underground houses. It is believed that its name has something to do with them. It comes from the language of the indigenous people of the country. The combination “kupa-piti” is translated from it as “white man’s hole.”
More than 1,600 people live in the underground “holes” of the town of Coober Pedy, dug at a depth of an average of 4-5 meters. The main business of local residents is the extraction of precious opals.

The city is located in the Great Victoria Desert, in the south of the country. This is one of the driest and most sparsely populated areas of the continent. With the advent of the twentieth century, precious opals began to be actively mined there. Since this place was always hot, dry, and sand storms periodically raged, the miners, along with their relatives, began to move into houses carved out of the mountains. Many of them had a direct passage into the mine. The conditions in these “apartments” were quite comfortable, no worse than in traditional dwellings. At any time of the year, the temperature in them did not rise above 22-24°C. There were the same rooms we were used to. The only thing missing was windows, since due to the extremely high summer temperatures, a maximum of two windows could be made.

When building a home in a town with the most large deposit precious opals, you can get rich, because approximately 96% of these stones are mined here. Some time ago, they were drilling for a hotel in Coober Pedy and found specimens worth approximately $360,000.
A valuable deposit was unexpectedly discovered a hundred years ago, in 1915, when they were searching for water sources in the area. The very next year, prospectors began to flock there. It is estimated that approximately 60% of Coober Pedy's population was from European countries. They moved there when the Second World War ended World War to work in the mines. Thus the city became the largest producer of high-quality opals in the world and still remains.
The distinctive properties of noble opals include rainbow tints. This is explained by the diffraction of light on its spatial lattice. The high cost of a stone is determined not by its size, but by how unique this play of color is. The value of opal depends on the number of rays.

The Aborigines have a legend that in very ancient times, spirits took the colors of the rainbow from the rainbow and hid it in opals. The second legend says that the Creator descended to earth and rainbow stones appeared in the places where his foot stepped.
Nowadays, stone mining is carried out only by private entrepreneurs, but this activity still brings the country about 30 million dollars a year.
Previously, opals were mined by hand, using shovels and picks. The rock was removed in buckets, and along the discovered precious vein it was necessary to crawl on one’s bellies.

The majority of mines are located at shallow depths. Their main passages were made using special drilling machines that cut tunnels about two meters high. Branches extend from the tunnels. These devices consisted of an engine and gearbox from a small truck. After this, they began to use a machine called “blower”. A high-power compressor was built into it, which sucks in the rock through a pipe placed in the depths. If you turn it off, the barrel opens. This is how a new small hill, or waste heap, appears. At the entrance to the opal capital, you can see a large sign depicting this car.

In the 80s, they decided to build an underground hotel in the city. Since then, there has been an influx of tourists every year. Here you can even go into two underground churches (one of which is Orthodox!).

Among the most visited attractions in the capital of opals is the house of the recently dead person, who was nicknamed Crocodile Harry. He gained popularity due to his countless love affairs and eccentric lifestyle.
Coober Pedy is considered the driest place in Australia. Only 175 millimeters of precipitation falls there per year. This is more than three times less than in European countries. It almost never rains there, which means Coober Pedy is not rich in vegetation. There are no big trees or beautiful flowers. You can find only a few shrubs and plants that retain moisture in their tissues (for example, cacti).
However, such conditions do not prevent local residents from finding entertainment in nature. They love to play golf, but can only do it at night when the heat subsides. For this purpose, there are specially equipped fields with movable grass and spherical flashlights that allow you to see in the dark.
In the city you can go to underground shops, souvenir shops, museums, bars, a jeweler's workshop, and also see cemeteries.

Coober Pedy has a desert climate. Summer time lasts from December to February, and average temperature reaches 30-40°C. With the onset of night it drops sharply (to 20°C). It is very difficult to get used to such changes. Sometimes sand storms rage here. To escape the heat, local residents dig underground apartments for themselves. Many descendants of the first miners decorate the interior of their homes in the “a la naturel” style, which involves covering the walls with a solution of PVA glue. This way you can eliminate dust and, moreover, preserve the natural color and texture of the stone. In these unusual apartments, the toilet and kitchen area are located right at the entrance, because in Coober Pedy there is no sewage system underground. All other rooms are usually dug deeper. Columns are built to support ceilings in large rooms. Their diameter can reach one meter.

Lovers modern interior Plaster is applied to the walls and ceilings. Thanks to this design solution, the underground “apartment” looks just like an ordinary one. Residents of the city also prefer to install such a luxury item as an underground swimming pool - a real salvation for those who live in one of the hottest regions of the planet.

The capital of opals has become one of the main points of most routes around Australia for tourists. Of particular interest to visitors is that Coober Pedy itself and its surroundings are considered very photogenic, which is why filmmakers often come here. For example, in 2006, the Australian film Opal Dream was filmed there. In addition, it became the setting for the film “The Black Hole”, and scenes of the movie “Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome” were filmed in underground houses.
On the edge of the town is the largest cattle farm on the planet, as well as the famous “Dingo Fence”, stretching for 8,500 kilometers.

Each mound that is visible on the surface is connected to the underground using a shaft. This is the only way to survive in such an unfavorable climate.
Currently, over 45 nationalities can be found among the residents of Coober Pedy, most which are the Greeks. Drinking water comes through an artesian well, which was drilled 25 kilometers from the city.
There is no common power grid in the opal capital of the world. Diesel generators are used to produce electricity, and the premises are heated using solar water heating panels.
This unusual city underground in Australia, from a bird's eye view, you may be surprised not by the buildings familiar to our eyes, but by rock dumps, dotted with thousands of holes, dug in the red desert. This is an incredible sight that makes you feel like you are on another planet.

Coober Pedy is a small town in the central part of the Australian state South Australia. The estimated population in 2008 was approximately 2 thousand people.

The city is known as the Opal Capital of the World because it has one of the richest opal deposits, containing about 30% of the world's reserves. The name Coober Pedy is translated from the Australian Aboriginal language as “white man’s hole” or “white man underground.”

Due to the harsh temperature regime and the prevailing mining industry, people constantly live in underground caves, in mine shafts remaining after mining. Standard home cave bedrooms with a lounge, kitchen and bathroom are located in caves drilled inside the mountain, similar to houses on the surface. This maintains a constant optimal temperature, while on the surface it reaches 40 °C (maximum 55 °C), at which temperature many household appliances become unusable. But relative humidity rarely reaches 20% on hot days.

Much of Coober Pedy's attraction lies within the mines, such as the cemetery and underground churches. The first trees that could be seen in the city were welded from pieces of iron. The city has local golf courses with movable grass and golfers lay out small pieces of "turf" around for tee shots.

Coober Pedy is one of many tourist routes across Australia. Coober Pedy was the backdrop for films such as Mad Max 3: Beyond Thunderdome, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and The Black Hole. Around 2012, they are planning to conduct an experimental exercise for an expedition to Mars.

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Coober Pedy is a small town in the central part of the Australian state of South Australia.

The estimated population in 2008 was approximately 2 thousand people.

Uber Pedy is approximately 800 km away. from Adelaide, not far Railway from Adelaide to Alice Springs. Immediate big cities— Port Augusta (500 km to the south) and Alice Springs (600 km to the north).

The city is famous for its opals; it is the capital of the opal stone, cast in all the colors of the rainbow.

Opal mining is just under 100 years old, and its deposits were accidentally discovered while searching for water in 1915.

Noble opal is distinguished by a rainbow play of colors, the reason for which is the diffraction of light on a spatial lattice and its value is determined not by its size, but unique game colors.

The more rays, the more expensive the opal. One of the Aboriginal legends says that “long ago, spirits stole all the colors from the rainbow and put them in a stone - opal,” according to another - that

The Creator descended from heaven to earth and where his foot stepped, stones appeared, shimmering with all the colors of the rainbow.

Opal mining is carried out only by private entrepreneurs. However, this industry brings about $30 million annually to the Australian economy.

The city is known as the Opal Capital of the World because it has one of the richest opal deposits, containing about 30% of the world's reserves.

The name Coober Pedy is translated from the Australian Aboriginal language as “white man’s hole” or “white man underground.”

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Due to the harsh temperature regime and the prevailing mining industry, people constantly live in underground caves, in mine shafts left after mining.

Even the first settlers realized that due to unfavorable weather conditions, when the earth is heated by the sun during the day and the heat on the surface reaches 40 degrees Celsius, and at night the temperature drops sharply to 20 degrees (and sandstorms are also possible) - you can live underground in mine shafts after mining opals.

The constant temperature of underground houses is around +22-24 degrees at any time of the year. Today, the city is home to more than 45 nationalities, but the majority are Greek. The population of the city is 1,695 people.

Water comes from a drilled site 25 km away. artesian well from the city and relatively expensive. There is no public power grid in Coober Pedy.

Electricity is produced by diesel generators, and heating is provided by solar water heating panels.

At night, when the heat subsides, residents play golf with glow-in-the-dark balls.

Previously, opal mining was carried out manually - with picks, shovels, and the rock was pulled out in buckets until an opal vein was found, along which they then crawled on their bellies.

Almost all the mines are shallow and the main passages in them are made by drilling machines that break through horizontal tunnels the height of a man and from there are branches in different directions. These are practically homemade devices - the engine and gearbox from a small truck.

Then the so-called “blower” is used - a machine with a powerful compressor installed on it, which, through a pipe lowered into the shaft,

like a vacuum cleaner, it sucks rock and boulders to the surface, and when the compressor is turned off, the barrel opens and a new mini-mound is obtained - a waste heap.

At the entrance to the city there is a huge sign with a blower machine.

One of the city's attractions is the iron tree - the children of the first settlers asked their dad for a tree, so he made a tree from iron.

Even the first prospectors realized that they could settle relatively comfortably underground, in dwellings that cost almost nothing.

As for their successors, they and their families live in modern underground comfort.

Many of their houses are very large and simply luxurious...

Some even have underground pools, while just a short distance away, on the surface, the sun mercilessly beats down on the earth.

However, life in the opal mines remains difficult, and many miners eventually return with their families to easier lives elsewhere.

By the way, an article about an underground city and the people living in it, which appeared in Great Britain in 1927, prompted J. R. R. Tolkien to create in 1937, the second most popular literary work after the Bible, “The Hobbit,” and then, and “ Lord of the Rings"…

Coober Pedy is included in many tourist routes in Australia. People come here to see the underground churches and cemetery.

The first trees that could be seen in the city were welded from pieces of iron. The city has local golf courses with movable grass and golfers lay out small pieces of "turf" around the hole to tee off.

The landscape of Coober Pedy is very conducive to location filming of extraterrestrial civilizations... Such films as “Mad Max 3: Beyond Thunderdome”, “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert” and “Pitch Black” were filmed here.

The Amazing Race is in its second season in Coober Pedy.

In the Coober Pedy area, around 2012, they are going to conduct an experimental exercise for an expedition to Mars...

Among the local attractions, local historians highlight the world's largest livestock farm and the world's longest "Australian" fence.

Standard home cave bedrooms with a lounge, kitchen and bathroom are located in caves drilled inside the mountain, similar to houses on the surface.
This maintains a constant optimal temperature, while on the surface it reaches 40 °C (maximum 55 °C), at which temperature many household appliances become unusable. But relative humidity rarely reaches 20% on hot days.

Target="_blank">https://www.factroom.ru/facts/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/32-300x198.jpg 300w" style="border: 0px; width: 730px; height: auto;" width="550" />

Much of Coober Pedy's attraction lies within the mines, such as the cemetery and underground churches. The first trees that could be seen in the city were welded from pieces of iron.

The city has local golf courses with movable grass and golfers lay out small pieces of "turf" around for tee shots.

Target="_blank">https://www.factroom.ru/facts/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/42-300x225.jpg 300w" style="border: 0px; width: 730px; height: auto;" width="550" />

Coober Pedy is included in many tourist routes in Australia. Coober Pedy was the backdrop for films such as Mad Max 3: Beyond Thunderdome, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and The Black Hole. Around 2012, they are planning to conduct an experimental exercise for an expedition to Mars.

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Target="_blank">https://www.factroom.ru/facts/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/6-300x225.jpg 300w" style="border: 0px; width: 730px; height: auto;" width="550" />

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What do these celebrities have in common?

— Rolling Stones (Rolling Stones)

— Ricky Martin (Ricky Martin)

— Alanis Morissette (Alanis Morissette)

— Janet Jackson (Janet Jackson)

— Billy Joel (Billy Joel)

— Neil Diamond (Neil Diamond)

— Fleetwood Mac (Fleetwood Mac)

— Matchbox Twenty (Matchbox Twenty)

— Acey Disi (AC/DC)

Well, it is clear that they are all world-class musicians, fame, recognition, money, fans... but we are not interested in this now.

They all visited Melbourne. It's already warmer...

What you and I really need to know is that all these stars (and many more), while on tour in Australia, selected and bought famous Australian precious opals from the same absolutely fantastic person and good friend of mine (of which I am immensely proud) — Nicholas Le Suef.

Nick Le Suef in front of himself at the age of 25. The photo was taken in Coober Pedy - the underground city of miners and the capital of Australian opals

Believe me, THESE people could afford to buy opals in ANY other store in Melbourne or Sydney, but they all chose Nick.

Autographs and tributes Rolling Stones - Ricky Martin - Alanis Morissette - Janet Jackson - Billy Joel - Neil Diamond - Fleetwood Mac) - Matchbox Twenty - Acey DC (AC/DC) and other famous Nick customers.

At the age of 25, Nick already knew perfectly well how to look for precious opals

But the years take their toll, and when it became physically difficult for Nick to mine opals, he opened a store and began selling them.

That's another 20 years :))

At 70 years old, Nick knows exactly how to take care of his customers. target="_blank">https://www.factroom.ru/facts/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/10-300x225.jpg 300w" style="border: 0px; width: 730px; height: auto;" width="550" />

The underground art gallery is dedicated to Aboriginal art. There are exhibitions here about the opal mining process. Visitors are given the opportunity to dig their own gemstone.

We invite you to look underground and visit the extraordinary underground city of Coober Pedy, where about 2 thousand people currently live.

At first, when you find yourself on these sun-baked red plains of Australia and see an absolutely “clean” landscape that is not particularly rich in buildings, it seems that the place is completely lifeless. But in fact, here is a stunning, mysterious town called Coober Pedy.

And what makes it special is the fact that this city is located underground.

There are no trees here, and the sun bakes with merciless force, but underground there are many kilometers of tunnels and rooms furnished as in ordinary residential buildings.

However, there is also accommodation for tourists who come here. From this corridor the doors lead directly to the guest rooms.

The locals settled here quite comfortably. Some houses are only half underground, which only adds to their uniqueness. It is worth noting that in terms of comfort they are in no way inferior to ordinary modern houses.

The history of the original city began in 1915, when a father and son found themselves here while traveling in search of gold.

They didn’t find gold here, but they did find beautiful opals, which quickly gained no less popularity.

The miners who came here could not withstand the high temperatures of the local climate and therefore built their houses not above the ground, but right between the mines.

They began digging long tunnels, so over time, about 1,500 dugout houses appeared in Coober Pedy.

In the modern world, Coober Pedy has long become the main supplier of opals. However, people come here no longer to look at precious stones, but to see the strange dugouts, the homes of the people living here.

The city's name means "white man's hole", an expression that appeared here in the 1920s.

Besides the mines, hotels and houses, there is also a beautiful church underground in Coober Pedy.

And also an underground bookstore.

And an underground jewelry store offering charming opal mined in the mines nearby.

Of course, you should also visit the underground bar for a drink with friends.

And then go upstairs and play golf on a platform specially equipped for this.

In one of the driest corners of Australia, where instead of rain there are sandstorms and there is no water even underground, the Australians have built an underground city with all the attributes of public life.

The town of Coober Pedy is located in the state of South Australia on the eastern border of the Great Victoria Desert. It got its name from the Aborigines, who called the settlement of new Australians in their ancestral lands “the white man’s hole.” And the city itself arose as a miners' village. In 1915, noble opal was discovered in the Stuart Range, and it subsequently turned out that there were layers of precious stone here, amounting to 30% of the world's reserves.

From the heat to the ground

Coober Pedy's climate is very harsh. The sweltering heat during the day gives way to a sharp drop in temperature at night. The temperature difference reaches 20 degrees. On the surface of a person there are clouds of flies. In addition, sandstorms often occur. To escape the heat and the pervasive sand, the first settlers of the mining village began to build their homes in the exhausted mines. The peculiarities of the development of the opal deposit required the construction of shallow horizontal mines in the form of tunnels with branches. Miners and their families began to settle in such sleeves.

Real apartments with several rooms were equipped underground. To keep things cool, they usually cut one or two windows near the front door, so the air temperature was naturally maintained around 22-24 degrees.

Churches, shops, workshops, and a cemetery were built underground.

Nowadays, the few residents of the city live in both underground and above-ground dwellings, with air conditioning installed to create a comfortable atmosphere. The dug houses are fully equipped with modern means of comfort - sewerage, electricity, running water. There is even a choice in the decoration of the premises - natural, when the walls of the rooms cut into the stone are simply coated with a special composition for cleanliness, and modern - the stone walls are sheathed with plasterboard, and such a house is indistinguishable from other houses in Australia.

The main treasure

As already mentioned, the city arose from an opal deposit. There is a museum, shops, hotels, and a small local airport. Feature films are often shot in the fantastic surrounding landscapes. In the city and surrounding areas, the preserved remains of decorations, various mechanisms and aircraft remind of this.

But the main treasure in these desert lands is water. The nearest artesian well is dug 25 km from Coober Pedy. No matter how close we looked, there was no water. In former times, water was delivered here by pack caravans and it was worth its weight in gold. Modern city residents receive water from a piped water supply system, but its price is much higher than in other regions of the country.

• Iron trees grow in the city - artistic decoration with familiar forms
• The most common form of vegetation is cacti.
• Dug underground houses are called Dugout
• Churches are open for free visits, the main thing is not to forget to turn off the lights when leaving, as the signs at the entrance ask you to do.
• The city's small population consists of 45 nationalities
• Blower - a vacuum cleaner machine for sucking rock from a mine to the surface

How to get there

Coober Pedy is located next to the Stuart Highway, between Adelaide and Alice Springs. The nearest city, Port Augusta, is 500 kilometers away.

Coober Pedy is a convenient place to visit on an excursion on the way to the Red Center from Adelaide. If you wish, you can stay overnight in the underground city at a local underground hotel. If you are traveling around Australia, you will certainly use the Stuart Highway, which crosses the mainland from south to north, passing through the states of South Australia and the Northern Territory; it is simply impossible to drive past Coober Pedy.