Fossicking Folly

Coober Pedy isn't just some weird hangout for troglodite hermits, it does have a reason for being here. That reason is opal, and about 70 percent of the world's production comes from here. So the combination of mining and the extreme temperatures have led to it's underground lifestyle.

These temperatures, the road conditions, the proliferation of small diameter but very deep holes, and the use of high explosives; leads us to believe that a guided tour of the area is the best option.

Radeka's tour is recommended to us by our hotel so we head there.

The tour guide Brian is a knowledgeable local and he takes us out first of all to the Underground Anglican Church.

Then we head up to the local cemetery to see the graves of some local legends.

Next stop is the full size, 18 hole Coober Pedy Golf Course. Here, you have to carry your own patch of grass around with you, and you rake the greens before you putt. Brian tells us that they're affiliated with St. Andrew's so I ask him if they've ever been over. He tells me that they went over to St. Andrew's a few years back and weren't allowed to play on anything but the poor man's course. I thought this seemed pretty low in itself, but then Brian tells me that St. Andrew's Golf Club actually own an opal mine here as well. So these guys risk their lives mining opal for you, travel 10,000 miles and you can't even give them a go on your golf course!

18th 'Green'

The First Fairway

But my prejudices about golf clubs are well documented, so let's not dwell on that.
Our next stop is the mines themselves and some hands on fossicking (or noodling). This is not quite as deviant as it sounds and involves raking around piles of rubble looking for discarded or unnoticed slivers of opal. Found nothing of course.

Good Sign

From our fossicking follies we move over to Crocodile Harry's house. Harry was a European baron who moved to Coober Pedy to mine opal and become something of a local legend and possible inspiration for Crocodile Dundee.

Harry's Front Door(s) may look familiar to fans of Mad Max

He was also obviously a bit of an art buff and his house has become a sculpture park/film set/museum of everything and everyone who passed through it.

Particularly impressive is the photo of him spearing a 7 metre crocodile, whose mouth he would quite easily have fit in.

Next stop after Crocodile Harry's are the Breakaway Ranges. I think the photos will suffice as a description. One French woman refuses to get out and take photos because she reckons it's artificial (huh?). Must be sunstroke.



We head down to the base of the breakaways and then visit the Dog Proof Fence. This is the longest man made structure on earth at around 5300km long. We're curious as to how you can build something so long without the dingoes just walking around the ends.

Either side of us stretches an area known as the Moon Plain on which there are no grasses, plants or anything but rocks for about 100 miles on either side.