Coober Pedy – Its a Gem, But Its Also a Remote, Dusty, Mining Town

We planned a two-night stay in Coober Pedy to give us time to see its attractions and something of life in the town. We had actually seen most of it by lunchtime. It’s very remote – the nearest city of Alice Springs is 680 kilometres to the north, and  Port Augusta to the south is 520 kilometres away. 

This town is unique. It is in the centre of a moonscape of little cones of rock that have been dug out of the opal mines. It is remote, dry and dusty. Its name comes from two local Aboriginal words with ‘coober’ meaning either boy, uninitiated man or white man and ‘pedy’ means hole or rock hole. Thus Coober Pedy is a description of what the local Aborigines saw as the strange activity of ‘white men down holes’.

Around half of the 2,500 people in Coober Pedy live underground. Every hill has been dug into hoizontally with a door and verandah for access on the outside. Some houses can be up to 400 square metres in size. The reason for this is that the temperature can rise to 50°C in summer and it is typically around 40°C in January. Underground the temperature remains a pleasant 25°C. Over 47 nationalities are represented here with the majority of the population being either Greek, from the former Yugoslavia (ie Serbian, Macedonian) and Italian.

There are no large mining companies operating in the area and this is a result of the fact that a mining lease can only be acquired for an area of 50m x 50m or 50m x 100m.

Blowers, like this one, are an unofficial symbol of the town. The machinery was designed by Coober Pedy opal miners (they have all the hallmarks of a bush engineer) and work like a giant vacuum cleaner that sucks dirt from up to 30 metres underground. The big drum on top is referred to as ‘Hopper’.

Not only do people live underground but there are also underground shops, churches and hotels here. The Serbian Church is a superb example of underground ingenuity.

Dug out in 1993, this Church of St Elijah the Prophet is an impressive underground structure. All the buildings – the church, the parish house, a religious school and a community hall – were dug by the Serbian opal miners living in Coober Pedy. The church is 30 m long, 5.3 m wide, and 7 m high, and is carved out of the surrounding sandstone. A ceiling window is covered with stained glass and the church has a gallery with a baptismal font and an altar. 

In Catacomb Road, is the town’s Underground Catacomb Anglican Church, named after the famous catacombs in Rome. The altar is made like a winch and both the crucifix and the lectern are made out of mulga wood. Behind the altar are two air vents.

The Umoona Opal Mine and Museum is a business that has a large entranceway telling the story of opals and providing information on local Aboriginal culture and historyIt claims to be the town’s largest single underground tourist attraction. Naturally, it has a shop that sells a large range of opal jewellery. 

Almost in the centre of town is the old cemetery. It’s right next to the town’s small and quaint Greek Orthodox Church, with its wrought-iron bell tower. This dusty plot began when a man named James Conly became the town’s first mining fatality in 1921. The headstones and crosses illustrate Coober Pedy’s multicultural heritage with names such as O’Hearn, Hakeem, Wendt, Wonga, Antonelli, Athanasiadis and Babic.The current cemetery is further out of town on Boot Hill Road.

A town look-out shows the general nature of this ramshackle place. It has many of the amenities that you would expect in a little mining town – service station, hospital, supermarket, police station etc. The drive in theatre is missing half of its screen. Perhaps its last movie was ‘Gone With The Wind. The town’s water is piped from an artesion bore some 23 kilometres away and desalinated to provide good, clear water. There are a good number of tourist facilities such as caravan parks and motels.

The lookouit is also a good place for watching the sunset.

Tonight, we are going to try our luck at John’s Pizza Restaurant for dinner. It’s a very popular place with superb reviews and is regarded as one of the best in the state.