Coober Pedy… The town of legends. The town underground. The opal capital of the world. The town where it pays to be tough – and where if you’re not tough it’s a battle to get by.
Well, in fact Coober Pedy was all of those things. But how do I paint the picture?
Well, it is an underground town – no doubt about that. Everything is pretty much built, well tunnelled sideways and down, into the hills. Is it absolutely essential now? With aircon and stuff, I’d think they’d find other ways to manage the summer temperatures – but the tourists love it!
Geoff was with me. We stayed at a motel type joint. Someone had drilled 20m deep, 8m wide tunnel into the hill, dropping in some beds and kitchen – and there we were.
We spent some time with our Crusader mate, Darren. We watched the Crusaders lose (again), had a couple of good meals up the hill – and otherwise soaked up the place. Darren is tough, so Geoff and I trailed around behind him – hoping he’d protect us if things got bad.
Highlights?? There was a tourist thing, an opal mine. It gave us a sense of what the essence of Coober Pedy is about (opal mining obviously) and how people lived and worked in these places.
But for me, and I think Geoff felt the same, the highlight was definitely the Serbian Orthodox Church. I know, right. What the hell is one doing way out there. We still don’t know – but it was pretty amazing.
