Coober pedy australia invisible city. City in australia underground

In the central part of Australia, there is a small mining town of Coober Pedy, one of the main attractions of which is its underground houses. The city is known as world capital opals, because it is here that about 30% of the world's total reserves of these stones are concentrated, more than anywhere else on the planet. I suggest you take a short photo walk around the world capital of opals.

Most likely, the name of the city of Coober Pedy is associated with its unusual houses underground. In the Aboriginal language, kupa-piti, from which the name Coober Pedy is derived, means "the hole of the white man." The city is home to about 1,700 people, who are mainly engaged in the extraction of opals, and their homes are nothing more than underground "holes" made in sandstone at a depth of 2.5 to 6 meters.

It is located in South Australia, on the edge of the Great Victoria Desert, in one of the continent's most desolate and sparsely populated areas. At the beginning of the 20th century, mining of noble opals began here, 30% of the world's reserves are concentrated in the Coober Pedy territory. Due to the constant heat, drought and frequent sandstorms, prospectors and their families initially began to settle in dwellings carved into the mountainside - often it was possible to get into the mine right from home. The temperature in such an "apartment" all year round did not exceed 22 ° C, and the level of comfort was not much inferior to traditional "ground" houses - there were bedrooms, living rooms, kitchens, bathrooms. But no more than two windows were made - otherwise it would get too hot in summer.

Due to the lack of underground sewerage in Coober Pedy, the toilet and kitchen in the houses are located immediately at the entrance, i.e. at ground level. Bedrooms, other rooms and corridors are usually dug deeper. The ceilings in the large rooms are supported by columns up to 1 meter in diameter.

Building a home in Coober Pedy may even make its owner wealthy, as it is home to the largest deposit of precious opals. Deposits in Australia, mainly in Coober Pedy, account for 97 percent of the world's production of this mineral. Several years ago, while drilling an underground hotel, stones worth about $ 360,000 were found.

Roofs of Coober Pedy. A familiar sight and distinctive feature underground city are vents sticking out of the ground.

The opal deposit at Coober Pedy was discovered in 1915. A year later, the first miners began to arrive there. It is believed that about 60 percent of Coober Pedy's residents were from southern and eastern Europe who came there after World War II to work in the mines. For nearly a century, this city has been the world's largest producer of high quality opals.

Since the 1980s, when the underground hotel was built in Coober Pedy, it has been visited by thousands of tourists every year. One of the most visited places in the city of opals was the house of his recently deceased famous resident nicknamed Crocodile Harry - an eccentric, alcohol lover and adventurer, who became famous for his many love affairs.

In the photo: the underground church at Coober Pedy.

Both the city and its suburbs, for various reasons, are very photogenic, which is why they attract filmmakers there. Coober Pedy became the filming location for the 2006 Australian drama Opal Dream. Also in the underground houses of the city were filmed scenes for the film "Mad Max. Under the dome of thunder. "

Average annual rainfall in Coober Pedy is only 175 mm (in the middle lane in Europe, for example, about 600 mm). This is one of the driest areas in Australia. It almost never rains here, so the vegetation is very sparse. Not to be found in the city tall trees, only rare shrubs and cacti grow.

Residents, however, do not complain about the lack of outdoor activities. They spend their free time playing golf, although because of the heat they have to play at night.

Coober Pedy also has two churches underground, souvenir shops, a jewelry workshop, a museum and a bar.

Coober Pedy is located 846 kilometers north of Adelaide - the state capital South australia.

Coober Pedy has a desert climate. In the summer, from December to February, average temperature is 30 ° C, and sometimes reaches 40 ° C. At night, the temperature drops dramatically, to about 20 ° C. Sandstorms are also possible here.

An underground gift shop in Coober Pedy.

The townspeople escape from the heat by digging their houses underground.

Underground bar at Coober Pedy.

Such beautiful precious minerals are mined in Coober Pedy - a city that is called the "world capital of opals".

Some descendants of prospectors prefer to decorate their underground homes "a la natural" - they cover the walls and ceiling with PVA solution to get rid of dust, while retaining the natural color and texture of natural stone. Supporters modern solutions in the interior, the walls and ceiling are covered with plaster, after which the underground dwelling becomes practically indistinguishable from the usual. Both those and others do not refuse such a pleasant little thing as an underground pool - in one of the hottest places on the planet, this is a particularly pleasant "luxury".

In addition to dwellings, Coober Pedy has underground shops and museums, galleries and workshops, restaurants and a hotel, a cemetery and churches (including the Orthodox one!). But there are few trees and flowers here - only cacti and other succulents can endure the hot, arid climate of these places. In spite of this. there are golf courses with rolling grass in the city.

Coober Pedy is the constant point of many tourist routes across Australia. Interest in the underground city is fueled by the fact that films such as Mad Max 3: Under the Dome of Thunder, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, and Black Hole have been filmed in Coober Pedy. And on the edge of the Opal Capital of the World is the world's largest livestock farm and the well-known Dingo Fence, which stretches for 8,500 kilometers.

The city is famous for its opals, it is the capital of the opal-stone, shining with all the colors of the rainbow. The development of opals is a little less than 100 years old; their deposits were accidentally discovered while searching for water in 1915. Noble opal is distinguished by an iridescent play of colors, the cause of which is the diffraction of light on a spatial grating and its value is determined not by its size, but by a unique play of color. The more rays, the more expensive the opal. One of the aboriginal legends says that "a long time ago, the spirits stole all the colors from the rainbow and put them in a stone - opal," according to the other, that the Creator descended from heaven to earth and where his foot stepped, stones appeared, shimmering with all colors rainbows. Opals are mined only by private entrepreneurs. Nevertheless, this industry brings the Australian economy about $ 30 million annually.

The Coober Pedy area is one of the driest, deserted and sparsely populated areas in Australia. On average, only about 150 mm fall out per year. precipitation, and very large differences in day and night temperatures.

If you happen to fly over Coober Pedy, then you will not see the buildings we are accustomed to, but only heaps of rock with a thousand pits and hills against the backdrop of a rocky red desert, which creates an unearthly landscape that staggers the imagination. Each mound-cone with a hole in the middle, visible on the surface, is connected by a shaft to the underworld.

Even the first settlers realized that due to unfavorable weather conditions when the earth heats up in the sun during the day and on the surface the heat reaches 40 degrees Celsius, and at night the temperature drops sharply to 20 degrees (and sandstorms are also possible) - you can live underground in the shafts of mines after the extraction of opals. The constant temperature of underground houses is kept in the region of + 22-24 degrees at any time of the year. Today more than 45 nationalities live in the city, but the majority are Greeks. The population of the city is 1,695 people.

Water comes from drilled 25 km. from the city of an artesian well and relatively expensive. There is no common power system in Coober Pedy. Electricity is generated by diesel generators and heating is provided by solar water heaters. At night, when the heat subsides, residents play golf with balls glowing in the dark.

Previously, the development of opals was carried out manually - with picks, shovels, and the rock was pulled out with buckets until they found an opal vein, along which they then crawled like bellies. Almost all the mines are shallow and the main passages in them are laid by boring machines that break through horizontal tunnels the height of a man's height and from it - branches in different directions. These are almost home-made devices - the engine and gearbox from a small truck. Then the so-called "blower" is used - a machine with a powerful compressor installed on it, which, like a vacuum cleaner, sucks the rock and boulders to the surface through a pipe lowered into the mine, and when the compressor is turned off, the barrel opens and a new mini-mound is obtained - a waste heap.

There is a huge sign with a blower car at the entrance to the city.

They live underground, grow cacti in their gardens, and play golf at night - this is how the life of the inhabitants of a small town in the Australian desert looks like. We are talking about the world capital of opals - the mining town of Coober Pedy. Residents of a town in the southern Australian desert, with temperatures sometimes exceeding 40 ° C in the shade in summer, have found an easy way to cope with the heat. In their houses, even in the most terrible heat, it is always cool, but not at all because they use air conditioners, moreover, they do not need to wash windows or hang blinds on them in order to avoid the prying glances of their neighbors, but all because the inhabitants of Coober Pedi build their houses ... underground. Come with us to the opal underground city of Coober Pedy.

16 PHOTOS

1. Most likely, the name of the city is associated with its unusual houses underground. In the Aboriginal language, kupa-piti, from which the name Coober Pedy comes from, means "the hole of the white man". The city is home to about 1,700 people, who are mainly engaged in the extraction of opals, and their homes are nothing more than underground "holes" made in sandstone at a depth of 2.5 to 6 meters. (Photo: Les Pullen / South Cape Photography).
2. Due to the lack of underground sewerage, the toilet and kitchen in the houses are located immediately at the entrance, ie. at ground level. Bedrooms, other rooms and corridors are usually dug deeper. The ceilings in the large rooms are supported by columns up to 1 meter in diameter. (Photo: Les Pullen / South Cape Photography).
3. Building a house in Coober Pedy can even make its owner wealthy, as it is home to the largest deposit of precious opals. Deposits in Australia, mainly in Coober Pedy, account for 97 percent of the world's production of this mineral. Several years ago, while drilling an underground hotel, stones worth about $ 360,000 were found. Their detection became possible thanks to modern geodetic equipment - enough to find out which one. (Photo: Les Pullen / South Cape Photography).
4. Roofs of Coober Pedy. A familiar sight and distinctive feature of the underground city is the ventilation holes sticking out of the ground. (Photo: Robyn Brody / flickr.com).
5. The opal deposit at Coober Pedy was discovered in 1915. A year later, the first miners began to arrive there. It is believed that about 60 percent of Coober Pedy's residents were from southern and eastern Europe who came there after World War II to work in the mines. For nearly a century, this city has been the world's largest producer of high quality opals. (Photo: Les Pullen / South Cape Photography).
6. Underground Church at Coober Pedy. (Photo: Jacqui Barker / flickr.com).

Since the 1980s, when the underground hotel was built in Coober Pedy, it has been visited by thousands of tourists every year. One of the most visited places in the city of opals is the house of its recently deceased resident Crocodile Harry, an eccentric, alcohol lover and adventurer who became famous for his numerous love affairs.

Australia. What do we know about the Green Continent? Cute koalas and kangaroos, natives, boomerangs, plastic banknotes ... But Australia is also a land of opals. And the small town of Coober Pedy in the state of South Australia - her opal capital... It is believed that the opal stone soothes the nerves, heals the heart, warns the owner of the presence of poison in food, and even gives the gift of prophecy! ..

The man who first called Australia the "Green Continent" was probably joking. It is green only along the coast, and in the center there is a barren desert, the bottom of a dried up ancient inland sea. Coober Pedy is in the middle of it.

Center the map

Motion

By bike

On the way

South Australia is one of the driest regions of the Fifth Continent. Most of its territory is covered with endless deserts, scrubs and salt marshes. But it is in its depths that the real underground storehouse of the country is located.

The mining town is lost in the endless desert. Instead of trees, grasses and flowers - stones, sand and heat under plus 50. Here, more than once episodes of films about life after a global catastrophe were filmed. Even the inscriptions on the fences are appropriate here: “Welcome to Hell!”, Which means “ Welcome to Hell!»

It is located 10 hours north of Adelaide. Seekers of happiness and adventurers from all over the world come here, in this dusty city scorched by the sun. After all, Coober Pedy is the capital of Australia's ongoing "opal fever".

Around Coober Pedy, like in a minefield, there are signs. " Do not approach the mines!"- read the strict warnings. The opal mine area stretches for tens of kilometers around. During the years of fever, about one and a half million mines! The local landscape yourself locals called " lunar valley».

It was a childhood dream to come to Australia. Two years after arriving at " Green continent " Gennady Karpenko ended up in scorched desert... He is a carver: he searches for opals and processes them in his workshop.

95% of all opals in the world are mined in Australia. This stone has been familiar to the locals since time immemorial. True, the Australian aborigines have always bypassed opals - they believe that a spirit with the head of a man and the body of a snake dwells underground, luring people with the magical brilliance of multi-colored stones.

Opals were found here by chance in 1915. Now Coober Pedy is the richest deposit in the country. Its name comes from the distorted "Kupa Piti", which in the language of the Australian aborigines means ... "white people in a hole."

There is a battery on his belt, a flashlight on his forehead, and an ultraviolet lamp in his hands - the standard outfit of a local miner. Gennady agreed to show us the places where until recently he managed to find large opals. There are no security guarantees. Any mine here can collapse at any moment. The search for opals is a dangerous business in which everyone works at their own peril and risk!

Gennady, the opal carver: “A crack on this side, see? Sometimes it can be dangerous, everything can collapse here. "

Opals in Coober Pedy are sought in mines at a depth of 25-30 meters. Someone rises to the surface for years with nothing, and someone in one day can turn into a millionaire ...

In the face, Gennady knows every turn of the adit - he spent more than one day here, underground, with a lantern and a pickaxe.

Gennady, the opal carver: "I found a few opals in the rock right there, above, a little - here ..."

His favorite sound in the mine is the crunch of breaking glass. With this, opals are taken out of the breed. After all, opal, in fact, is glass sintered by nature, due to the presence of various elements and inclusions, playing with bright sparks in the light. This stone is better visible in ultraviolet light. Therefore, Gennady now and then turns on a blue lamp in the darkness of the mine.

Gennady, the opal carver: “Sometimes, when people blow up rock in a mine, then they can miss some of the opals. And you, following them, through their garbage, you can find a vein that will bring 3, 5 10 thousand dollars ... "

From this one of the niches, having laid explosives, his neighbors-miners recently took out opals for ... 380 thousand dollars!

Gennady, the opal carver: “Nobody here asks anyone here how much you found, how you sold - this is not accepted at Coober Pedy. A lot of cash is spinning in this business! "

There are not so many places in the world where you can legally get rich in just one day! Some call it “ opal fever", Others - by fortune, still others - by playing roulette. In the face, you can walk a few centimeters from the most valuable stone and not find it. Or you can accidentally stumble upon an opal vein!

Gennady, the opal carver:“When from the wall, where there is nothing, from a small crack suddenly opens this, this is the thickness of the opal! When they are with color, you just stop breathing! You just forget how you breathe! "

Dust, wind and an excavator devouring tens of liters of diesel fuel a day. Many opal seekers having arrived for a little while held in Coober Pedy all life. You just need to stake out a plot - everyone can do it. Father and son Rade and Roger mine opals in an open pit. Since 12 years old (!) Son has been masterfully handling an excavator bucket. His father, who came here in search of happiness back in 1967, is now over 70. He carefully examines the stones below, so as not to miss the cobblestone, which may contain opal, relying on experience and intuition.

Rade, opal seeker:“I have found black, pink, green, crystalline - all kinds of opals. True, I was not as lucky as other prospectors. It was enough for me to pay the bills for life. I am probably the biggest loser of all the old people who work at Coober Pedy! "

The pride of Rada and Roger is huge " boulder”- the opal that they keep at home. There is no second such thing in the world! They are in no hurry to sell it and show it only on special occasions.

There are several dozen shops selling opals in small Coober Pedy. The most valuable of them are considered pink and black. Depending on the size and quality, the price of processed opals can go up to tens of thousands of dollars!

Djubitsa works in one of Coober Pedy's opal shops. Prices are lower here than in big cities Australia: stones are sold here by those who find and process them themselves.

Dyubitz, salesperson: “This stone is crystalline opal, large in size, transparent and pure. Look, you can see all the colors of the rainbow in it, and the more red there is in the opal, the more valuable it is. "

This stone burns devilishly in the light, its shimmer enchants. But during processing, opal loses up to 2/3 of its volume, or it may crack completely, losing its value. Opal is as fragile as glass. It is enough to drop it, and the holographic beauty can shatter into thousands of fragments. Therefore, only experienced craftsmen can work with opal.

Gennady, the opal carver: "If the stone is very expensive, sometimes it is up to $ 1,000 per carat, it is very difficult to cut it ..."

Cutting is the most critical stage in opal processing. Sometimes the master looks at the stone for hours, not knowing how to approach it.

Gennady, the opal carver:“Opal processing is always a surprise, a lottery. You can just cut and get a colorless stone from two parts, and sometimes you see how the stone starts to play in your hands! "

Carvers say that opal must be felt with hands, only then the master will be lucky in his work. And luck is exactly what the Australian town of Coober Pedy, seized by the "opal fever" of our time, needs so much!

You can watch the video version of this article in the form of a reportage about Coober Pedy, shot by me for the program "Their Manners" (NTV), here:

Write in the comments, what would you like to know in more detail about Australia?

Coober Pedy- a small city underground in Australia, which is located in central region country. He received the title of the world capital of opals thanks to the huge deposits of these minerals, which are cast in rainbow colors. There are about 30% of all opal deposits on the planet. No other place on Earth can compare with it in this indicator.

This mining town is also famous for its unusual underground houses. It is believed that its name has something to do with them. It comes from the language of the country's indigenous people. The combination "kupa-piti" is translated from it as "the hole of the white man."
More than 1600 people live in the underground "holes" of the town of Coober Pedy, dug at a depth of 4-5 meters on average. The main business of local residents is the extraction of precious opals.

The city is located in the Great Victoria Desert, in the south of the country. It is one of the driest and sparsely populated areas of the continent. With the onset of the twentieth century, precious opals have been actively mined there. Since this place was always hot, drought and periodically sandstorms raged, miners, along with their relatives, began to settle in houses cut down in the mountains. Many of them had a direct passage to the mine. The conditions in these "apartments" were quite comfortable, no worse than in traditional dwellings. At any time of the year, the temperature in them did not rise above 22-24 ° C. There were the same rooms we were used to. All that was missing was the windows, because due to the extremely high summer temperatures, a maximum of two windows could be made.

When building a dwelling in a town with the largest deposit of noble opals, you can get rich, because about 96% of these stones are mined here. Some time ago, they drilled a hotel in Coober Pedy and found copies worth about $ 360,000.
A valuable deposit was unexpectedly discovered a hundred years ago, in 1915, when they were looking for water sources in the area. The next year, prospectors began to come there. It is estimated that approximately 60% of Coober Pedy's population came from European countries. They moved there when the Second ended. World War to work in mines. So the city became the largest producer of high quality opals in the world and still remains.
The distinctive properties of noble opals include iridescent tints. This is due to the diffraction of light on its spatial grating. The high cost of a stone is determined not by its size, but by how unique this play of color is. The value of an opal depends on the number of rays.

The aborigines have a legend that in very ancient times, the spirits took its color from the rainbow and hid it in opals. The second legend says that the Creator descended to earth and rainbow stones appeared in the places where his foot stepped.
Now the extraction of stone is carried out only by private entrepreneurs, but this activity still brings the country about $ 30 million a year.
Previously, opals were developed by hand using shovels and picks. The rock was extracted with buckets, and it was necessary to crawl along the discovered precious vein.

Most of the mines are located at shallow depths. Their main passages were made using special drills that cut tunnels about two meters high. Branches depart from the tunnels. These devices consisted of an engine and gearbox from a small truck. After that, they started using a machine called the Bloer. It has a built-in compressor with a high power, which sucks in the rock through a pipe placed in the depths. If you turn it off, the barrel opens. This is how a new small hill or waste heap appears. At the entrance to the opal capital, you can see a large sign depicting this car.

In the 80s, it was decided to build an underground hotel in the city. Since that time, an influx of tourists has been observed every year. Here you can even go to two underground churches (one of which is Orthodox!).

Among the most visited sights of the capital of opals is the house recently deceased person nicknamed Crocodile Harry. He gained popularity due to his countless love affairs and eccentric lifestyle.
Coober Pedy is considered the driest place in Australia. During the year, only 175 millimeters of precipitation falls there. This is more than three times less than in European countries... It almost never rains there, which means Coober Pedy is not rich in vegetation. There are no big trees or beautiful flowers. You can find only a few shrubs and plants that retain moisture in their tissues (for example, cacti).
However, such conditions do not prevent local residents from finding entertainment in nature. They love to play golf, but can only do so at night when the heat recedes. For this, there are specially equipped fields with mobile grass and ball-shaped lanterns, allowing you to see in the dark.
In the city, you can go to underground shops, souvenir shops, museums, bars, a jeweler's workshop, and also see cemeteries.

Coober Pedy has a desert climate. Summer time lasts from December to February, and the average temperature reaches 30-40 ° C. With the onset of night, it drops sharply (up to 20 ° C). It is very difficult to get used to such changes. Sandstorms sometimes rage here. To escape the heat, locals dig underground apartments for themselves. Many descendants of the first miners decorate the interior of their homes in the “a la nature” style, which implies covering the walls with a PVA glue solution. This way you can eliminate dust and, moreover, preserve the natural color and texture of the stone. In these unusual apartments, the toilet and kitchen area are located right at the entrance, because there is no sewage system underground in Coober Pedy. All other rooms are usually dug deeper. Columns are built to support the ceilings in large rooms. Their diameter can be up to one meter.

Lovers of a modern interior apply plaster to walls and ceilings. Thanks to this design solution, the underground “apartment” looks just like an ordinary one. Residents of the city also prefer to install such a luxury item as an underground pool - a real salvation for those who live in one of the hottest regions of the planet.

The opal capital has become one of the main points of most tourist routes in Australia. Of particular interest among visitors is the fact that Coober Pedy itself and its surroundings are considered very photogenic, so filmmakers often come here. For example, in 2006 the Australian film "Opal Dream" was filmed there. In addition, it became the scene of the movie "Black Hole", and scenes of the movie "Mad Max: Under the Dome of Thunder" were filmed in underground houses.
At the edge of the town is the largest livestock farm on the planet, as well as the famous Dingo Fence, which stretches for 8,500 kilometers.

Each mound that can be seen on the surface is connected to the dungeon by a mine. This is the only way to survive in such an unfavorable climate.
Currently, among the inhabitants of Coober Pedy, you can find over 45 nationalities, most of which are Greeks. Drinking water passes through an artesian well, which was drilled 25 kilometers from the city.
The world's opal capital does not have a common energy system. Diesel generators are used to generate electricity, and the premises are heated with solar water heaters.
From a bird's eye view, this unusual city underground in Australia may surprise you not with buildings familiar to our eyes, but with rock heaps dotted with thousands of dimples dug in the red desert. This is an incredible sight that makes you feel like on another planet.

Older people probably remember the Soviet film Kin-Dza-Dza. There was an episode where the main characters are brought to the city. But there is no city as such. There are only small pipes sticking out in the middle of the desert landscape. The people in this film (at least some of them) lived underground, and the pipes were used for ventilation. Whole settlements lived literally in the ground, only occasionally getting out to the surface.

So the movie city has a very real prototype. It is the mining town of Coober Pedy, located roughly in the center of South Australia. It lies on the Stewart Ridge, 300 kilometers from National park Lake Eyre. The outskirts of the city are a deserted and deserted landscape. There is a sparsely populated area for hundreds of kilometers. Before Adelaide (the most big city state and the fifth largest in Australia) you need to travel 850 kilometers south on the Stewart Highway.

Coober Pedy on the map

• Geographic coordinates -29.010474, 134.757343
• Distance from the capital of Australia, Canberra, about 1550 km
• Distance to the nearest airport Cedune approximately 360 km

All distances are indicated "in a straight line"

And people there really live underground, in specially dug apartments. The decision to live under a layer of earth is dictated by the locals natural conditions... During the day, the air warms up to 40 o C, and by night the temperature can drop to 7 o C. Sharp temperature changes make life on the surface not entirely comfortable. And periodic sandstorms further exacerbate the situation.

Here we could not help but deviate from the topic. It seemed to us that these "terribly harsh", downright unbearable conditions are not so terrible. Read about the Pole of Cold in Russian Oymyakon. The conditions there are really unrealistically difficult. There, even tires on cars can crumble like chocolate, and the temperature in minus 40-50 is quite usual.

What, in principle, forced people to go underground in Coober Pedy? After all, Australia is a wonderful continent, there are a lot of places that are much more suitable for life. Take at least Hyams Beach - a beach with perfectly white sand. Swarm in the sand and watch the ocean. Or Fraser Island, where sand has been fighting the rainforest for hundreds of years. But no, people are drawn to the desert, and even underground. The answer is really simple. There are huge reserves of the precious mineral. Opal is why people still live here. It has been mined here since 1915.

In general, for the first time a simple opal was found in these places back in 1849 at the height of the gold rush. Full-scale development of the deposits began in 1915, when noble opal was found here. According to scientists, about 30% of all world reserves of this valuable mineral are located here. Therefore, Coober Pedy is also called the World Capital of Opal. Opal is widely used in jewelry.

The miners have adapted to live in dugouts. The temperature there was almost always about 22 ° C. Often, miners went to work right from home, for this they dug tunnels directly into the mine. The workers dug entire houses underground, and they lived well in them. In addition to the dwellings, there is a bar, a museum, churches, an art gallery and even a hotel for tourists who want to experience what it is like to live underground.

The development of technology and technology allowed more than half of the inhabitants to move to the surface, but there are citizens who still live underground. And they live very well. They have everything in their house for a comfortable stay - a kitchen, a living room, bedrooms and even bathrooms. Naturally there is electricity, running water and sewerage. They call such apartments "Dugout" and are made in two versions. Natural and modern. In the first version, the walls of the housing are only strengthened with special impregnations or an emulsion of ordinary PVA glue. This prevents them from shedding and removes dust. In addition, this design creates the illusion of primitiveness. You can take pigments and put them on the walls of mammoths, or in our case, a kungaroo. Modern design involves the creation of familiar rooms, but only underground. In this case, the floor, walls and ceiling are leveled, plastered and poured. The result is a completely modern home. Its underground is betrayed only by the absence of windows. In the beginning, by tradition, two windows were made near the front door, but then the temperature balance in the room was disturbed. True, now this problem is solved by installing an air conditioner. Everything else is the same as in any modern home. Sometimes both styles are combined and you can get from the ultra-trendy and modern living room to the primitive bedroom.

• translated from language local tribe Coober Pedy means "white man's hole" or "underground white man"
• extraterrestrial desert landscapes have become natural backdrops for some famous films. In particular, scenes from the blockbusters "Mad Max. Under the Dome of Thunder "and" Black Hole "were filmed here. There is even an entire starship from the movie "Black Hole" preserved nearby.

• the city hosts a number of festivals: the Coober Pedy Race, the Queen of the Desert and the Opal Festival. And still all residents gather annually to celebrate the end of summer with noisy celebrations.
• as of 2011, a little less than 1,700 people lived in the town
• in 1956, the largest opal was found in the Coober Pedy area. Its dimensions are 28 x 12 x 11.5 cm. Weight is 17000 carats or 3.45 kilograms familiar to us. The find was estimated at 2.5 million Australian dollars. This nugget was named the Olympic Australis Opal (originally The Olympic Australis Opal) in honor of the then Olympic Games in Melbourne
• there is an underground cemetery in the city
• there is no water at all in Coober Pedy. Many times people tried to drill wells, but they never got to the water. The region cannot boast of abundant rainfall - they usually fall no more than 150 mm per year. Water comes through a 24 km long water pipeline from a small settlement nearby (this settlement could not be found on the map, if you have data on this, please let us know)

Coober Pedy photo