THERE IS A LOT TO SEE IF YOU LOOK
Published on Le Monde, Australian Geographic and Internazionale
Eight hundred kms north of Adelaide, in South Australia, a small town stands in the Outback: Coober Pedy.
Its name comes from the Aboriginal term kupa-piti, meaning “white man’s hole”.
The town is arid, flat and the heat can reach 45°C in the shade during summer. It is home to 1500 people and the majority of them live in underground homes called dugouts.
These excavated hollows in the sandstone offer residents a respite from the extreme conditions.
The reason they exist is the same reason the town exists: opal mining.
Opal is one of the most valuable gemstones in the world. Its price can reach into the millions, depending on the type, color, and weight.
The gemstone was first found in Coober Pedy in 1915, leading to a mining boom as people came in search of their fortune.
It’s estimated that 70% of the world’s opal is mined in Coober Pedy.
It’s 6.30am and I could not be more thrilled to be in this place that I have heard so many stories and seen so many pictures of.
I have arrived here after a long drive through the South Australian desert and spent the first night in a caravan park where I slept in the car I hired in Adelaide.
The sun is rising and the light is magical. The red earth of the desert glows with the early rays. The town is still sleeping except for the two men sitting at a cafè under the sign “Waffles and Gems”. I stop and ask for a coffee, Jimmy (he is Scottish and owns the shop) asks me what brought me here.
After two years of lockdown and the pandemic, they have not seen many people around. He is cold and distant but at the same time curious of my
presence.
After introducing myself, I grab the cup of coffee he has made for me and sit down with them.
It is me, Jimmy and Dino.
Shortly after, I will find out that Dino will be the encounter that made this story possible and so special for me.
We start talking about the long drive that everyone has to do to get to Coober Pedy. I drove 650km in one go the day before. The desert gets drier and drier as you make your way up from Adelaide.
It is a flat desert and most of the people I spoke to before embarking into this journey, warned me that I would have gotten bored driving. I have found it special.
I was amazed by the feeling of driving for so long in a desert by yourself with nothing around.
Jimmy agrees and points out, with his strong Scottish accent, that this is the reason why they love Coober Pedy. Being that isolated makes it special. “ I have driven on that road so many times, and what they told is wrong. There is a lot to see if you look”.
We keep chatting for a while and it comes out that Dino’s mining partner, Raf, has Italian origins. I had to meet him. Dino gives him a quick call asking if he would be keen to meet me.
Ten minutes later I am in Dino’s ute on our way to Raf’s dugout.
It is thought that the landscape of the Breakaways formed through the evaporation of an ancient inland sea, triggered by the continental shift that warmed the climate. They are the reason why this land is where much of the world’s precious opal lies underground.
Coober Pedy drive in
Early days of the Coober Pedy Italian Club. 1964.
Entrance of Crocodile Harry’s Dugout Crocodile Harry (born as Arvid Blumenthal) is the man who inspired Crocodile Dundee. Having arrived Down Under in 1951 from Latvia, he began poaching crocodiles in North Queensland in 1956. Legend has it that ‘Harry’ killed as many as 40,000 crocodiles throughout the Northern Territory and the Queensland tropics to sell the flesh for cash over his two decade career, before giving up the poaching game to retire to an underground cave near Coober Pedy.
Dino (b. Dean), at the entrance of his dugout, waiting for the rain to stop to go mining. Mining under the rain is dangerous, the ground can collapse and it is hard and risky to operate machines under the rain.
Mick, miner
View of an Opal field
Entrance of an Opal mine
Checking the stones after a day out in the field with Dino
Vinko is an opal miner who moved from Croatia to Australia. He stands next to what he thought was a dinosaur fossil. Experts from Adelaide traveled to Coober Pedy to inspect it and it came out it was an 80 million years old palm tree. When miners dig holes to look for Opal they find a lot of fossils from the Early Cretaceous period. It was a time when dinosaurs and other ancient creatures lived where Coober Pedy now stands, and when ancient reptiles swam in a shallow sea covering much of inland Australia.
Desert Cave Hotel
Opal mine
Underground Serbian Orthodox Church
St Peter and Paul Catholic Church The first purpose built underground Catholic Church of its type in the world. It was opened in 1967.
Coober Pedy shooters club
Phil in his container where he cuts and polishes his stones
Coober Pedy Racing Club
Opal shines under uv light and over the years miners have built machines to go “noodling”. Noodling is the sifting for small pieces of precious opal accidentally discarded by miners.
Tristan was born in Coober Pedy, his Dad was a miner. He lived in Coober Pedy until he was 13 and moved to Adelaide to go to high school. He spent 20 years in Adelaide and he then dicided to move back to Coober Pedy. This is the new extension of his place. He’s planning on renovating and make it livable to welcome his wife to the new home.
Olaf Brandt is from Germany and he is 85 years old. He moved to Coober Pedy in 1971 and he retired there because “he found enough opal to live but not to retire in a city”.
