EXHIBITION

WHAT My Hell's Gate and Mahogany

ARMCHAIR JOURNEY

Len Beadell's Legacy By Ian Bayly BAS Publishing, 144pp, $35

Surface Indications

You don't have to dig very deep to find colourful stories in the desert town of Coober Pedy, writes Christina Pfeiffer.

Speaking Of Labels

YOUNG, American, antiglobalisation author Naomi Klein headed into the Australian bush this week to meet antinuclear campaigners in the remote South Australian town of Coober Pedy.

The Poster Child Nike Could Just Do Without

Young American anti-globalisation author Naomi Klein headed into the Australian bush this week to meet anti-nuclear campaigners in the remote South Australian town of Coober Pedy. Ms Klein, in Adelaide for the three-day Festival of Ideas, became the poster girl for the S11 anti-globalisation protest movement after the publication of No Logo; Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies, which chronicled the insidious cultural and economic impact of the big consumer brands. She became an anti-globalisation campaigner an

East Meets West In Sa

Fourteen-year-old Nathan East is heading west for a unique insight into life in the opal mining town of Coober Pedy. The Lake Illawarra High School student was selected ahead of his classmates to take part in a special school exchange program. For one week, starting August 5, Nathan will leave

Soft On The Centre

It's just as well the Australian outback is so vast. The long list of films shot there increases again this month when filming of The Red Planet, a Hollywood production about a reconnaissance mission to Mars, starts at Coober Pedy. But there have been plenty of recent Australian films - often roa

Desert Storm

Flies, endless stretches of red dust dotted with iconic landmarks and characters sprouting wistful tales of travellers past await Big-Trippers on the Coober Pedy mail run. Story and photographs by Michael Gebicki. Take a cushion, everyone advised me, when I mentioned I was travelling with the

They Mine Their Own Business

Would the last miner to leave Coober Pedy's opal wasteland please turn off the lights? Opal mining's soldiers of fortune are trekking in droves to Lambina Station at Marla, more than 200 kilometres to the north, emptying the so-called "opal capital of the world" of most of its good ope

Women United By A Really Hot Topic

It was a sunny 21 in Maribyrnong yesterday, but a cold day for the Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta women's group. Back home, it gets to up to 50 in summer. But the 16 women from Kokatha, Arabunna, and Antinkarinya Aboriginal people - communities from Port Augusta to Coober Pedy in South Australia - weren

Master Musician Blows In For Outback Jams

From Coober Pedy to Port Augusta, Roxby Downs to Nilpinna Station, budding outback maestros have trekked up to 1,200 kilometres to jam with the Master. School's in session in the opal fields with the patron of the disadvantaged muso, Don Burrows. Burrows's skills on the tin whistle at age nin

Digging The Outback

WAKE up hungry in the middle of the night in the Desert Cave Underground Hotel at Coober Pedy and you could easily be tempted to lick the sumptuous, honey-coloured walls and ceilings. These glistening natural sandstone surrounds - as rich as a Darrell Lea window - are typical of the bedrock withi

The Town That Everyone Digs

IT'S a big day down Coober Pedy way today at the Opal and Outback Festival. And as you're reading this on Easter Sunday, you are probably not at Coober Pedy - it takes a while for NSW newspapers to reach the remote South Australian settlement. Perhaps you wonder why anyone would want to go to

Where Truth Went Underground

COOBER PEDY exists for one reason: opals - the finest in the world. After opals were discovered in 1915, the small town in the middle of the South Australian desert became home to an influx of ex-soldiers, who lived in the now-familiar underground dugouts. Most made their money and left. Coob

Backpacker Sexually Assaulted, Court Told

A young German backpacker found murdered in Coober Pedy last year, had been sexually assaulted and bashed about the head and face. She might have been left to die in the bottom of a 20-metre mine shaft, a South Australian Supreme Court jury has been told. Ms Ann Neumann, 22, went missing in th

Kennett Rejects Pleas To Speed Bus Safety Law

The State Government yesterday rejected calls for the immediate installation of seat belts in school buses, despite the second bus crash this week involving secondary school students. The Premier, Mr Kennett, said that despite the accidents _ near Coober Pedy on Saturday and at Myrtleford yesterd

Coober Pedy - A Town Fearful Of Itself

South Australian police are expected to offer a $100,000 reward for information revealing the fate of a German tourist, Anne Margarete Marlies Neumann, who disappeared recently from Coober Pedy. Ms Neumann, 29, is the third young woman to disappear from the outback mining town in the far north

Sa Police Hunt For Missing German Traveller

Coober Pedy, the opal mining town in the far north of South Australia, is again in shock after the suspected murder of a German backpacker within hours of her arrival in the town. After the latest disappearance, SA police have again warned of the dangers of backpacking and hitchhiking in rural

Lost - Two Women And A Town's Innocence

AS A place to dump bodies, Coober Pedy is hard to beat. Abandoned mineshafts stretch in a 40-kilometre radius around the town. Just 100 metres below the surface lies an unmapped labyrinth of tunnels, blast holes and dead ends. As one local says: ``If you want to bury someone out here you just drop t

Driver Dies In Heat After Breakdown

A post-mortem examination will be carried out in Adelaide today on the body of a 26-year-old Sydney surveyor who died from apparent heat exhaustion when his car broke down in an isolated area south of Coober Pedy on Sunday. Senior Constable Richard Bach of Coober Pedy police said Mr Georg