Encounter with the Outback

A visit to Coober Pedy, the opal town of Australia, is a never-before experience,
writes Inder Raj Ahluwalia

TRY this for something different. As many as 75 per cent of locals actually live underground. Why? Not as a fad, but because its ‘cool’. Literally so. There’s more to chew on. Which other town can offer 47 nationalities out of a total population of 4,500?

What can one say about a town like Coober Pedy, except that it is refreshingly different. Its name sounds like that of an exotic animal, and its aerial view resembles a children’s playhouse with little structures neatly tucked between roads and patches of sand.

But then no one ever said Coober Pedy was your conventional town. And as for the name, it does have a meaning. Coober Pedy means ‘White man in a hole’, and the holes (the town’s most plentiful building material) and the people living in them are there because it is the Australian Outback’s leading mining town and the opal capital of the world. Eighty per cent of the world’s opal is mined here.

Coober Pedy turned out to be exceptional and refreshingly different. As we approached it, it resembled a sprawling children’s playhouse with little structures neatly arranged between tracts of sand and roads. But it was on landing that the real picture became clearer. We were in the middle of nowhere.

"Welcome to Coober Pedy, mates. I’m Sandy and I’m going to look after you and make sure you don’t get lost. People can get lost here, you know. After all this isn’t the Great Australian Outback for nothing", she said with a huge smile as we piled into her van.

This region was covered by the ocean 150 million years ago. After the sea receded, climatic changes lowered the underground water tables, and silica solutions were carried down to deposit in cavities and faults. Over millions of years, these solutions have formed into opal, bringing wealth and fame to the town. In 1915, gold miners first found opal here accidentally, and the rush was on. The 1960s and 1970s saw the opal mining trade develop into a multi-million dollar industry, and Coober Pedy became its hub and developed into a modern mining town. Today, it is the opal that attracts miners, traders and buyers. The ‘romance’ lures tourists, who also get to enjoy stunning landscapes and a taste of rural Australian lifestyles.

With an annual rainfall of 175 mm, no topsoil, soaring temperatures, and water costing $ 5per kilolitre, Coober Pedy has never been renowned for its lushness. "But then no one comes here for greenery. Our lifeblood is opal", Sandy explained matter of factly. Built and nurtured on opal, the town flourishes on it for both mining and tourism.

If you see tourists bent over a heap of mud, well, they aren’t praying or building sand-castles. ‘Knoodling’ is the town’s one and only physical pass time, and involves running one’s hands through the mud in search of opal. After all, what’s the point in coming all this way and not trying your luck? If others can scavenge for left-behind pieces, why can’t I, I asked myself, joining a group of excited diggers. Thirty minutes and bruised hands, left me with no opal but a strong thirst.

That night we were introduced to Yanni Athanasiadis, Sandy’s boss and a prominent town personality. Moving here as a young man from his native Greece, Yanni is today an opal baron. His company, Umoona Opal Mine, Museum and Underground Complex, has an Aboriginal interpretative centre, a made-to-order jewellery facility, and underground self-catering camping.

One gets a taste of genuine Australian Outback life. And a first-hand look at the unique style of underground living in old mines now converted into comfortable homes. We saw Sandy’s home and had coffee with her husband. Of the three underground churches in town, the Underground Catholic Church of St. Peter and St. Paul are particularly beautiful. There are several other interesting places to drop ‘under’, like Dusty Radio Station run by children, Dugout Motel, the Underground Art Gallery that features displays of Aboriginal artifacts, or the Opal Cave Lookout with its grand town views.

Tourists are taken in hand with several unusual packages. For $15, one can see Martin’s Night Sky Presentation and Ghost Busters, a package that includes a glass of wine while star-gazing out in the darkness of the Moon Plains Desert.

"Everyone has to buy opal," said Sandy menacingly. Fair enough. After doing some casual buying of tribal art objects, one gets down to the business of opal shopping. The town’s shops stock and display more opal than anywhere else in the world, and some offer opal-cutting demonstrations.

The next day was even more delightful. Sandy drove us to the nearby Breakaways Reserve, a unique nature park of staggering natural beauty. Located within the Arckaringa and Eromenya (Great Astesian) Basins, the Breakaways, described as a "timeless land telling stories of timeless people", offer striking arid scenery, from the flat-topped mesas to the stormy Gibber desert. The stunning beauty of the vast landscapes with the famed plateau-like outcrops of rock and multi-coloured soil has been for filming futuristic and science-fiction films like Mad Max, Fire in the Stone, and Priscella Queen of the Desert.

With its name that sounds like an exotic animal, its opal and dug-outs, and its unique geographical composition, Coober Pedy belongs to a rare category of destinations. Very unusual and very beautiful.

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