Australia city underground coober pedi. Coober Pedy, Australia: the underground capital of opals
They live underground, grow cacti in their gardens, and play golf at night - this is how life is like for the inhabitants of a small town in the Australian desert. We are talking about the world capital of opals - the mining town of Coober Pedy. Residents of a town in the southern Australian desert that sometimes sees temperatures in the shade in the summer reach 40°C have found an easy way to beat the heat. In their houses, even in the worst 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 to avoid the prying eyes of their neighbors, but all because the inhabitants of Kuber- The peds build their houses... underground. Look with us into the opal underground city Coober Pedy.
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1. Most likely, the name of the city is associated with its unusual houses underground. In the Aboriginal language, Koopa Piti, from which the name Coober Pedy is derived, means "hole white man'. About 1,700 people live in the city, who are mainly engaged in the extraction of opals, and their houses 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, i.e. at ground level. Bedrooms, other rooms and corridors are usually dug deeper. The ceilings in the large rooms support 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 rich, because there is 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, during the drilling of an underground hotel, stones worth about 360 thousand dollars were found. Their detection was made possible by modern surveying equipment - enough to know which one. (Photo: Les Pullen/South Cape Photography). 
4. Roofs of Coober Pedy. A familiar sight and distinctive feature of the underground city are the ventilation holes sticking out of the ground. (Photo: Robyn Brody/flickr.com). 
5. The opal deposit in 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 residents were from the South and of Eastern Europe who came there after World War II to work in the mines. For almost a hundred years, this city has been the world's largest producer of High Quality opals. (Photo: Les Pullen/South Cape Photography). 
6. Underground church in Coober Pedy. (Photo: Jacqui Barker/flickr.com).
Since the 80s, when an 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, lover of alcohol and an adventurer who became famous for his many love affairs.
7. Both the city and its suburbs, for various reasons, are very photogenic, which is why filmmakers are attracted there. Coober Pedy became the filming location for the 2006 Australian drama Opal Dream. Also in the underground houses of the city, scenes for the film “Mad Max. Under the dome of thunder. (Photo: donmcl/flickr.com). 
8. 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. There is almost no rain here, and therefore the vegetation is very sparse. Not found in the city tall trees, only rare shrubs and cacti grow. (Photo: Rich2012) 
9. Residents, however, do not complain about the lack of outdoor entertainment. They spend their free time playing golf, although due to the heat they have to play at night. (Photo: Les Pullen/South Cape Photography). 
10. In Coober Pedy, there are also two churches underground, souvenir shops, a jewelry workshop, a museum and a bar. (Photo: Nicholas Jones/Flickr.com). 
11. Coober Pedy is located 846 kilometers north of Adelaide, the capital of South Australia. (Photo: George Sharp/Flickr.com). 
12. Coober Pedy has a desert climate. In summer, from December to February, average temperature is 30 ° C, and sometimes reaches up to 40 ° C. At night, the temperature drops sharply, to about 20 ° C. Sandstorms are also possible here. (Photo: doctor_k_karen/Flickr.com). 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 served for ventilation. Entire settlements lived literally in the ground, only occasionally getting out to the surface.
So the movie city has a very real prototype. This is the mining town of Coober Pedy, located roughly in the center of the state of South Australia. It lies on the Stuart mountain range, 300 kilometers from national park Lake Air. The surroundings of the city are a deserted and deserted landscape. There are sparsely populated areas for hundreds of kilometers around. To Adelaide (most big city state and the fifth largest in Australia) you need to get 850 kilometers south along the Stewart highway.
Coober Pedy on the map
- Geographic coordinates -29.010474, 134.757343
- Distance from the capital of Australia Canberra is about 1550 km
- Distance to the nearest airport Seduna is about 360 km
All distances are "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 ° C, and by night the temperature can drop to 7 ° C. Sudden 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. Here the conditions are really unrealistically difficult. There, even tires on cars can crumble like chocolate, and temperatures of minus 40-50 are quite common.
What, in principle, forced people to go underground in Coober Pedy? After all, Australia is a wonderful continent, there are a lot of places much more suitable for life. Take at least Hyams Beach - a beach with perfectly white sand. Dig in the sand and watch the ocean. Or Fraser Island, where the 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 precious minerals. Opal is why people still live here. It has been mined here since 1915.
This is what opal looks like In general, for the first time a simple opal was found in these places in 1849 at the height of the gold rush. And full-scale development of deposits began in 1915, when noble opal was already found here. According to scientists, about 30% of the world's reserves of this valuable mineral are located here. Therefore, Coober Pedy is also called the Opal Capital of the World. Opal is widely used in jewelry.
The miners adapted to live in dugouts. The temperature was almost always around 22°C. Often, miners went to work directly from their homes; for this, tunnels were dug directly into the mine. The workers dug entire houses underground, and lived well in them. In addition to 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 has 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. Their house has everything you need for a comfortable stay - kitchen, living room, bedrooms and even bathrooms. Naturally there is electricity, running water and sewerage. They have such apartments called "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 eliminates dust. In addition, this design creates the illusion of primitiveness. You can take pigments and spread them on the walls of mammoths, or in our case kungur. 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 undergroundness is betrayed only by the absence of windows. At the beginning, according to tradition, two windows were made near the front door, but then the temperature balance in the room was disturbed. However, now this problem is solved by installing an air conditioner. Everything else, as in any modern house. Sometimes both styles are combined and you can get from the trendy and modern living room to the primitive bedroom.
- translated from the language of the 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 Thunderdome" and "Black Hole" were filmed here. Nearby, even a whole starship from the movie "Black Hole" has been preserved.
- The city hosts a number of festivals: the Coober Pedy Race, the Queen of the Desert, and the Opal Festival. And yet all the inhabitants 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 17000 carats or 3.45 kilograms familiar to us. The find was valued at 2.5 million Australian dollars. They named this nugget the Olympic Australian Opal (in the original 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 managed to get to the water. The region cannot boast of heavy rainfall - they usually fall no more than 150 mm per year. Water is supplied by a 24 km long 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
coober pedy- a small underground city in Australia, which is located in the central region of the country. It received the title of the world capital of opals thanks to the huge deposits of these minerals, which are cast in iridescent colors. There are approximately 30% of all opal deposits on the planet. No place on Earth can compare with him in this indicator.
This mining town is also known for its unusual underground houses. It is believed that its name has something to do with them. It came from the language of the indigenous people of the country. The combination "kupa-piti" is translated from it as "white man's hole".
More than 1,600 people live in the underground "holes" of the town of Coober Pedy, dug at an average depth of 4-5 meters. The main business of the locals is the extraction of precious opals.
The city is located in the Great Victoria Desert, in the south of the country. This is one of the driest and sparsely populated areas of the continent. With the onset of the twentieth century, precious opals began to be actively mined there. Since this place was always hot, drought and sandstorms periodically raged, miners, along with their relatives, began to settle in houses cut down in the mountains. Many of them had a direct entrance 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, familiar to us rooms. The only thing missing was 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 approximately 96% of these stones are mined here. Some time ago, a hotel was drilled in Coober Pedy and copies were found 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 very next year, prospectors began to gather there. It is estimated that approximately 60% of Coober Pedy's population was from European countries. They moved there when the Second ended. World War to work in the mines. So the city became the largest producer of high quality opals in the world and still is.
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.
There is a legend among the natives that in very ancient times, spirits took away its colors from the rainbow and hid it in opals. The second legend says that the Creator descended to the earth and on the places where his foot stepped, iridescent stones arose.
Now the extraction of stone is carried out only by private entrepreneurs, but this activity still brings the country about 30 million dollars a year.
Previously, opals were mined by hand, using shovels and picks. The rock was extracted with buckets, and along the discovered precious vein it was necessary to crawl in a plastun way.
Most of the mines are located at shallow depths. Their main passages were laid with the help of special boring machines, breaking through 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 began to use a machine called "blower". A high power compressor was built into it, which sucks the rock through a pipe placed in the depths. If you turn it off, the barrel opens. So there is a new small hill, or waste heap. At the entrance to the capital of opals, you can see a large sign depicting this car.
In the 80s, the city decided to build an underground hotel. Since that time, every year there has been an influx of tourists. Here you can even visit two underground churches (one of which is Orthodox!).
Among the most visited sights of the capital of opals is the house recently dead person, who was 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 that Coober Pedy is not rich in vegetation. There are no big trees and 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 they can only do it at night when the heat subsides. For this, there are specially equipped fields with mobile grass and spherical lanterns that allow 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. Sometimes sandstorms 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 naturel” style, which involves covering the walls with a solution of PVA glue. So you can eliminate dust and, moreover, preserve the natural color and texture of the stone. In these unusual apartments, the toilet and kitchen room are located right at the entrance, because there is no underground sewerage in Coober Pedy. All other rooms are usually dug deeper. To support the ceilings in large rooms, columns are built. Their diameter can reach one meter.
Lovers of modern interiors put plaster on the 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 on the planet.
The capital of opals has become one of the main points of most of the routes in Australia for tourists. Of particular interest to 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 setting for the movie "Pitch Black", and scenes from the movie "Mad Max: Under Thunderdome" were filmed in underground houses.
On the edge of the town is the largest livestock farm on the planet, as well as the famous "Dingo Fence", stretching for 8500 kilometers.
Every mound that can be seen on the surface is connected to the dungeon with a shaft. This is the only way to survive in such an unfavorable climate.
Currently, over 45 nationalities can be found among the inhabitants of Coober Pedy, most of which are Greeks. Drinking water passes through an artesian well, which was drilled 25 kilometers from the city.
There is no common power grid in the opal capital of the world. Diesel generators are used to generate electricity, and the premises are heated with solar water heaters.
This unusual city underground in Australia from a bird's eye view 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 allows you to feel like you are on another planet.
In the central part of Australia, there is a small mining town of Coober Pedy, one of the main attractions of which are its underground houses. The city is known as the opal capital of the world, because it is here that about 30% of the world's 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. Koopa Piti, from which the name Coober Pedy is derived, means "white man's hole" in the Aboriginal language. About 1,700 people live in the city, who are mainly engaged in the extraction of opals, and their houses 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 most deserted and sparsely populated places on the continent. At the beginning of the 20th century, the extraction of noble opals began here, 30% of the world's reserves of which are concentrated on the territory of Coober Pedy. Due to the constant heat, drought and frequent sandstorms, prospectors and their families initially began to settle in dwellings carved into the mountainside - often one could get into the mine directly from the house. The temperature in such an “apartment” did not exceed 22 ° C all year round, and the level of comfort was not much inferior to traditional “ground” houses - there were bedrooms, living rooms, kitchens, bathrooms. But they made no more than two windows - otherwise it became too hot in the 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 support columns up to 1 meter in diameter.
Building a house in Coober Pedy can even make the owner rich, as the largest deposit of precious opals is located there. Deposits in Australia, mainly in Coober Pedy, account for 97 percent of the world's production of this mineral. Several years ago, during the drilling of an underground hotel, stones worth about 360 thousand dollars were found.
Roofs of Coober Pedy. A familiar sight and distinctive feature of the underground city are the ventilation holes 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 residents were from southern and eastern Europe who came there after World War II to work in the mines. For almost a hundred years this city has been the world's largest producer of high quality opals.
Since the 80s, when an 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 its recently deceased famous resident nicknamed Crocodile Harry - an eccentric, alcohol lover and adventurer who became famous for his many love affairs.
In the photo: underground church in Coober Pedy.
Both the city and its suburbs, for various reasons, are very photogenic, which is why filmmakers are attracted there. Coober Pedy became the filming location for the 2006 Australian drama Opal Dream. Also in the underground houses of the city, scenes for the film “Mad Max. Under the dome of thunder.
The 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. There is almost no rain here, and therefore the vegetation is very sparse. There are no tall trees in the city, only rare shrubs and cacti grow.
Residents, however, do not complain about the lack of outdoor entertainment. They spend their free time playing golf, although due to the heat they have to play at night.
Coober Pedy also has two underground churches, souvenir shops, a jewelry shop, a museum, and a bar.
Coober Pedy is located 846 kilometers north of Adelaide, the capital of South Australia.
Coober Pedy has a desert climate. In summer, from December to February, the average temperature is 30°C, and sometimes reaches up to 40°C. At night, the temperature drops sharply, to about 20°C. Sandstorms are also possible here.
Underground gift shop in Coober Pedy.
Citizens save themselves from the heat by digging their houses underground.
Underground bar in Coober Pedy.
Such beautiful precious minerals are mined in Coober Pedy, a city that is called the "opal capital of the world."
Some descendants of miners prefer to decorate their underground houses "a la naturel" - they cover the walls and ceiling with PVA solution to get rid of dust, while maintaining 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 almost indistinguishable from the usual one. Both those and others do not refuse such a pleasant trifle 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 an Orthodox one!). But there are few trees and flowers here - only cacti and other succulents can endure the hot arid climate of these places. Despite this. the city has golf courses with mobile grass.
Coober Pedy is an invariable item of many tourist routes across Australia. Interest in the underground city is fueled by the fact that films such as Mad Max 3: Under Thunderdome, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Black Hole were 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, 8,500 kilometers long.
The city is famous for its opals, it is the capital of the opal-stone, shimmering with all the colors of the rainbow. The mining 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 its iridescent play of colors, which is caused by the diffraction of light on a spatial lattice and its value is determined not by its size, but by its unique play of color. The more rays, the more expensive the opal. One of the legends of the natives says that “a long time ago, the spirits stole all the colors from the rainbow and put them in a stone - opal”, according to another, that the Creator descended from heaven to earth and where his foot stepped, stones appeared that shimmered with all colors rainbows. Only private entrepreneurs are engaged in the extraction of opals. Nevertheless, this industry brings the Australian economy about 30 million dollars annually.
The Coober Pedy area is the most one of the most arid, deserted and sparsely populated in Australia. On average, only about 150 mm falls per year. rainfall, and very large differences in day and night temperatures.
If you happen to fly over Coober Pedy, then you will not see the buildings familiar to our eyes, but only rock heaps with a thousand holes and mounds against the background 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 in view of the unfavorable weather conditions when the earth heats up in the sun during the day and the heat reaches 40 degrees Celsius on the surface, and at night the temperature drops sharply to 20 degrees (and sand storms are also possible) - you can live underground in mine shafts after mining opals. The constant temperature of underground houses is around +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.
The water comes from a drilled 25 km. away from the city artesian well and relatively expensive. There is no common power grid 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 an opal vein was found, along which they then crawled in a plastunsky way. Almost all mines are shallow and the main passages in them are laid by boring machines that break through horizontal tunnels as high as a man and from him - branches in different directions. These are practically self-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 rock and boulders to the surface through a pipe lowered into the mine, and when the compressor is turned off, the barrel opens - a new mini-mound is obtained - a heap heap.
At the entrance to the city there is a huge sign with a blower car.
