If you are keeping up with our posts then you will know we were in Port Augusta over Easter. Not quite what we were planning but just a little detour.
Port Augusta and Whyalla
This week was more interesting and back to the red dirt. We travelled for a couple of days, past salt lakes and prohibited Commonwealth areas near Woomera due to the military activity. The Ghan train goes through this area, and we arrived at possibly the weirdest place in Australia – where 40% of the population (1942 people) live underground in their dugouts, and most people survive by digging for opal. There are no big mining companies here, just individuals that don’t trust each other as they don’t want others to know where they have found opals! No one throws anything out so there is a lot of junk on people’s land. It’s a bit of the Wild West in the desert.
Yes it’s Coober Pedy (so much for everyone trying to guess where Noddy is!). The meaning is from the indigenous language of “white man in a hole”. Where millions of years ago the sea bed rose, silica transformed into colourful opals and they were discovered in 1915, which caused an opal rush and many migrants came here. This is the place where many movies have been filmed, areas that look almost moon-like, and the signs that tell you not to walk backwards in case you fall down one of the 250,000 a mine shafts in the region. There are underground churches, underground bars, mines everywhere. The golf course has black greens and fake grass to tee off.
This is what we saw, please click on the YouTube link:
Enjoy!
Thanks for a reminder of Cooper Pedy, I remember the Greek Orthodox Church, really quite stunning.
hey Tanya, yes is quite stunning it a funny way…