Knoodling In The Aussie Outback
Coober Pedy is on the way to nowhere, located in the heart of South Australia's Outback, approximately half way between the South Oz city of Adelaide and the outback oasis of Alice Springs, and hundreds of miles away from anything else.
But for those with a nose for hidden gems, this place is a diamond in the rough. Coober Pedy is actually the “Opal Capital of the World.” And is also its hell hole where temperatures climb so high between November and March the town disappears into the earth for comfort. So far, what the Aboriginals named the “White Fellow's Hole in the Ground” might not sound like a place to drag the kids for a summer vacation. But in fact, it is just that. Coober Pedy is the face of the real Australia -- a small town with all the crazy characters one would expect to find out in the middle of the moonscape; a place where hotels are built into underground caves, golf is played on grassless fairways and fortunes can be made simply by digging beneath your feet.
* Check out the largest opal find in town – in tact and for sale at the Old Timers Mine and Museum. The Painted Lady, in three pieces and weighing between 176 and 220 pounds, is worth about $50,000. It was originally found in 1983, when it was last displayed but has since remained in a secret location until now, when the miner who discovered it decided to put his prize on the market.
* Tour the Moon Plain -- a vast expanse of rocky plains unlike anywhere else that has been used as the setting for such films as “Mad Max: Beyond the Thunderdome,” “Priscilla Queen of the Desert,” and “The Red Planet,” among others.
* Then there is the Dog Fence-- the longest continual construction in the world. Stretching some 3,200 miles, it begins east of Surfer's Paradise in Queensland and ends up north of Ceduna on South Australia's far west coast. It was originally built to protect the sheep farms in the south from the Dingo (native Australian dogs) in the north.
* A visit to the underground abode of Crocodile Harry may be the order. The great old story teller is all that one would hope to find in this harsh spot. He declares himself to be Arvid Von Blumentals, a Latvian Baron who was forced to leave his country after World War II and claims to have worked as a crocodile hunter in Northern Australia before coming to Coober Pedy to find his lost fortune in opals. His underground digs were featured in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome and the film crew left a singing sculpture out of metallic trash, which they called 'The Orchestra,” for its rattles in the breeze.
* Other scenic highlights include Underground Catacomb Anglican Church at the eastern end of Coober Pedy, made out of materials local to the area. The altar resembles a winch and both the crucifix and the lectern are made out of mulga bush wood. Behind the altar are two air vents. Nearby, the Serbian Orthodox Church is cut from solid rock and detailed in ornamentation.
* Visit one of Coober Pedy's few trees, welded together from scrap iron and on a hillside perch overlooking the town. The graveyard is a site of interest as well, with beer keg headstones for those miners who died too poor to afford stone. And, of course, there are the mine tours where visitors can see the layers of operations and even do some “fossicking” and “noodling” on their own for opal strikes.
It is estimated that more than three-quarters of Coober Pedy's population lives beneath the earth, in domiciles called dugouts, first created by soldiers who returned home from the trenches of France after the First World War. Miners later introduced the idea of living underground in these homes to escape the extreme heat.
Most of the town's hotel, motel and cottage rooms follow the wisdom of subterranean living where temperature maintain at 73 to 77 degrees Fahrenheit. The Desert Cave Hotel is Coober Pedy's top choice in accommodations and harbors the world's only truly underground bar and gaming room. Rooms are quiet, cool, dark and airy, tombs of cavernous comfort. (Visit desertcave.com.au).
Other properties to consider have names like Mud Hut Hotel, the Underground Motel and Fred & Wilma's And Barney & Betty's B&B. Rooms average $75 to $150 per night.
For more information visit www.opalcapitaloftheworld.com.au, or contact the South Australian Tourism Commission at (888) 768-8428 or visit www.southoz.com.
Get There
Getting there is half the fun. Drivers can follow the Stuart Highway to arrive from Adelaide. The highway is a sealed road, which parallels the railway of the Ghan train, which runs from Adelaide to Alice Springs as well as the desert routes of camel drivers of an earlier time. Approximately 528 miles from Adelaide, the drive takes 9-10 hours. But The Ghan railway leaves the driving to others so passengers can relax in cool comfort and enjoy scenery usually only available to the most intrepid of travelers. Trains leave from Adelaide and disembark at Manguri, which is approximately 25 miles out of Coober Pedy and easily accommodated for transfers by the town's hotels and tour companies. The train journey takes approximately 12 hours on its weekly departures from Adelaide to Darwin. For more information, go to gsr.com.au. For time-bound clients that want a taste of this region, Regional Express Airlines offers flights from Adelaide to Coober Pedy five days a week. For more information, visit www.regionalexpress.com.au.
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