Today most of us went on a 5 hour tour of Coober Pedy, booked through the caravan park, Stuart Ranges Caravan Park. It was worth the money as we have seen everything to do with Coober Pedy. The movies “Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert” and “Mad Max:Beyond Thunderdome” were made around Coober Pedy.
We visited the Beakaways, which are natural formations about 35 kms out from Coober Pedy. This is where scenes from the above mentioned movies were shot. Wow what awesome scenery.
We visited a underground house, used underground toilets and saw an underground church. We went onto a opal mine site and saw where they had done some open cut mining. Due to high fuel costs, open cut methods are no longer used. There are about 60 miners operating in the area at the moment. Most mines are small affairs with 2 or 3 partners involved. Opal mining does not seem to suit the big mining boys.
Since they introduced local government to the town, no mining is allowed to take place within the town limits. However people can apply for add an extra room to their underground house. One woman asked her husband to expand her pantry. In doing so they also found $70,000 worth of opal. Two thirds of the town population live in underground houses.The population of Coober Pedy is about 3,000.
This is the most beautiful stone and comes in many colours. I saw a cut opal worth $35,000. It was translucent with yellow highlights, just a perfect piece of opal. I also saw a black opal pendant worth $12500.
The photo below is the Underground Serbian Church.
Pizza for tea tonight.
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