Coober Pedy: Amazing Underground City in South Australia

Opals Produced at Cober Pedy Mines

Coober Pedy is one of the most unique city which was built in under ground. This town is situated in northern South Australia which is 846 kilometers north of Adelaide. This city is called Opal City. Opals were first extracted in the year 1916. There are around 250,000 mine shaft entrances located here.It's not the only opal mining town in Australia, but it is by far the biggest and produces more opal than any other place in the world. But you wouldn't guess it when you first look at the place, because most of the people in Coober Pedy live underground.

Underground Homes -1 

Underground Homes - 2

The Australian Outback has some brutal living conditions, and much of the country is uninhabitable by humans. In Coober Pedy, the scorching heat would scare off almost any settler - except for the presence of a huge lode of opal in the area. The summer is very hot since it lies in the desert region over-100F temperatures but it can get quite cool in the winter. Many residents to live in caves bored into the hillsides which they are called as dugouts. A standard three-bedroom dugout home with lounge, kitchen, and bathroom can be similar price to building a house on the surface. However, dugouts still remain at a constant temperature, while surface buildings need air-conditioning, especially during the summer months, when temperatures often exceed 40 degrees Celsius. These homes with their rose coloured sandstone walls are gorgeous.

A painted Home in Coober Pedy

Here is the location of these dugouts.

Mining started in 1916. The original miners had filled the shafts and hidden it, so that they come back later and get the rest of Opal. There is still plenty of Opal left in it. Unfortunately, the original minors never returned back. These hidden shafts were accidentally discovered during the excavations for a home extension. You're not allowed to do any opal mining in the town itself any more, but you can always extend your home. The owners decided not to recover and sell the opal some of the pieces visible are easily worth tens of thousands of dollars. You can even find out what is required to stake a claim and to start opal mining yourself.

Underground Hotel in Coober Pedy

In 1922 an attempt was made to solve the scarcity of water by building a two million liter water tank. Unfortunately there was not enough rain until 1925 to enable the tank to be filled. Living conditions improved rapidly and by the mid 1920s the field had two stores, a post office, firewood was available for $2 per dray load, and a Miner's Right could be obtained for fifty cent per year giving the right to peg out an area of fifty meters by fifty meters. Poor results on the opal field during the depression of the 1930s and drought conditions in general resulted in the area once again being almost deserted until 1946 when a large find was made by an Aboriginal woman.

Underground Jewelry Shop in Coober Pedy

ENTHUSIASTS are suggesting that shale oil reserves thought to lie beneath the South Australian opal town of Coober Pedy. The possible existence of an estimated 233 billion barrels of shale oil. Some are suggesting that this discovery could make Australia self-sufficient in energy once again. Some are pointing to the ‘‘shale oil renaissance’’ in the US and suggesting that similar benefits from cheap domestic energy could rejuvenate Australian industry and help win jobs back from Third World sweatshops.