Surface Indications

The Sunday Age

Sunday May 20, 2007

Christina Pfeiffer

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

I'm staring at a row of crisply ironed business shirts hanging neatly in Yanni and Christina Athanasiadis' walk-in wardrobe that fits into a hole in their bedroom wall. Greek-born Yanni, who came to Coober Pedy more than 30 years ago, owns the town's Umoona Opal Mine and Museum. Yanni's Argentinean-born wife, Christina, glides from room to room, over highly polished timber floorboards, pointing out prized Peruvian wall-hangings and oil paintings of outback scenes.

Their sprawling underground home has a gym, a media room with a giant plasma TV, a den-like lounge room with soft mocha-coloured leather sofas and four bedrooms, each with an ensuite bathroom.

The Athanasiadis' home in Coober Pedy's (the Aboriginal term "kupa piti" roughly translates to "white man in a hole") Northwest Ridge is one of many underground houses in this virtually treeless opal-mining town at the edge of the Stuart Range, 850km north of Adelaide and 680km south of Alice Springs.

Although opal was discovered in 1915, it wasn't until the 1960s that hundreds of eager young men from Europe flocked to Coober Pedy to purchase mining rights to small parcels of land. After decades of mining, Coober Pedy's opal fields are covered in mounds of debris from shafts and the hills are a honeycomb of underground dwellings.

These homes range from one-room, hand-dug bed-sits to rambling mansions with swimming pools, solid-gold bathroom fixtures, wine "cellars" and all the features you'd expect to see in a sophisticated Melbourne home.

More than 60 per cent of the town's 3500-plus residents live underground. In summer, when outside temperatures reach a sizzling 50 degrees, these underground homes are a cool 22 to 26 degrees. In winter, the snug dugouts keep occupants warm without the need for heating.

Faye Naylor came up with the idea of turning her rough bed-sit into an underground house. Almost 40 years ago, Naylor, who has retired and moved to the coast, chipped away at the rock for three years with hand tools. Her work was continued by others and, over the years, five rooms, a wine cellar and a swimming pool were added to what is now one of Coober Pedy's must-see visitor attractions.

Today, the town is a cultural melting pot of more than 45 nationalities. There are two a-la-carte restaurants, a Chinese restaurant, pizza parlours, cafes, the popular Tom & Mary's Greek Taverna, several underground churches, underground shops, galleries and two real-estate agents.

Almost everything is brown, including the 18-hole Coober Pedy Opal Fields Golf Course, which provides members with reciprocal rights to play nine holes in St Andrews' Balgove course in Scotland during the month of January. The only patch of green that the townsfolk indulge in is the football field. This area is put to good use during the annual Opal Festival when Croatians, Serbians, Bosnians and Greeks can be found relaxing over a beer while cooking lamb on the spit.

To capture the ambience of opal mining, you need to visit a tourist mine. My favourite is the Old Timers Mine, an opal mine that was first developed in 1916. For reasons unknown, the mine was backfilled and the opal remained hidden until 1968, when a home renovation broke through the walls.

The dimly lit tunnels are a veritable mining museum with life-sized mannequins crouching in tiny grottos, gouging out opals with ancient-looking picks; climbing shafts using rough foot holes hand-picked into the walls; and wheeling around heavy barrows of dirt.

Despite the hardship, opal mining is addictive. "Once you find opal, you just can't stop," says Guenther Wagner. Wagner visited Coober Pedy on a photographic assignment from Germany 38 years ago and is still there. My heart flutters with excitement as I listen to his colourful tales about people who discovered hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of opals.

Wagner runs the Down 'n Dirty Opal digging tour. Prospective opal miners, like myself, armed with hard hats, torches and handpicks are given the chance to hack away at the walls of the Opal Quest Mine. Later, we sift through discarded mullock in an area known as the "jeweller's shop".

I'm noodling in good company, shoulder-to-shoulder with a visiting palaeontologist and a geologist from the University of New South Wales. The scientists have a fine time unearthing fossils and rocks while Wagner pokes around with a stick, picking up slivers of colourless potch (opal that is worthless) from the ground. Half way through, he buoys our flagging enthusiasm with a story about a recent find by one lucky sightseer, who, only a few months ago, unearthed an opal worth $50,000.

At the Umoona Opal Mine and Museum, busloads of visitors wander through underground tunnels and scour display cabinets in the showroom for rings, earrings and necklaces to take home as trophies from their trip.

But opals are not the only keepsakes you can find in Coober Pedy, as the rock is abundant with marine fossils: 120 million years ago, the Australian continent was part of the landmass known as Gondwana and Coober Pedy was at the bottom of a freezing polar ocean. Last month, the South Australian Museum officially opened its first permanent regional display of marine fossils at the Umoona Opal Mine.

"This sea was basically brimming with marine reptiles and all sorts of other bizarre animals," says South Australian Museum palaeontologist Dr Ben Kear whose zest for fossils is as infectious as the miners' obsession for opals.

The star of the show is the Umoonasaurus, a plesiosaur that was a frightening reptilian seal-like "Lochness monster" with a compact body, four flippers, a long neck, small head and short tail - the "killer whale equivalent of the Jurassic" according to Kear.

"When I first came here, opals were falling out of the ground. One time, I found enough opal in 20 minutes to buy two houses in Melbourne!" chuckles Peter Rowe, who has fond memories of the days when his kitchen table used to be piled with mounds of cash from opal sales.

Moving to Coober Pedy from Melbourne after a chance encounter with an opal miner, Rowe is full of fascinating stories about the celebrations and wins of the past. There was a time when those who made a big find wouldn't blink an eyelid about flying in buckets of lobsters and crates of champagne for the whole town to share.

"The smart ones invested their wealth in Sydney Harbour property," Rowe adds ruefully.

These days, the outlook is a lot more subdued. Upfront costs have increased as the opal veins become more difficult to locate. A miner working alone would need to fork out about $140,000 to pay for explosives, fuel, tunnelling machinery and living expenses for two years. The sophisticated equipment used these days can dig up a million dollars worth of opal in a few hours, but, as the opal veins become more and more illusive, people are becoming secretive about their discoveries.

Rowe's mining days are over. He channels his exuberance into a commentary for passengers riding shotgun on his bi-weekly 644-kilometre mail run, an all-day trip for adventurous tourists wanting to experience the outback first hand.

Just out of Coober Pedy, his 4WD mail truck rolls past a section of the 5300km dingo fence, erected to protect the livestock from dingoes. Further along the dirt highway is the Moon Plains, a dust bowl of brown ochre and yellow dirt - the area in which conspiracy theorists believe that the Apollo moon landing was faked.

Soon after the Apollo landing, the Adelaide Advertiser published a photograph of the lunar landscape beside one of Coober Pedy's Moon Plains.

"BBC4 in London phoned me at 2am one morning to ask me if I could pick out the real moon," says Rowe. "There was no way I could tell the two apart," he adds.

The writer visited Coober Pedy as a guest of SA Tourism Commission.

THE BASICS

Getting there

By air: Qantas, Jetstar and Virgin Blue fly to Adelaide. Regional Express (REX) operates flights between Adelaide and Coober Pedy. For bookings visit regionalexpress.com.au

By road: The Stuart Highway, which connects Adelaide to Alice Springs, runs close to Coober Pedy.

By train: The Ghan railway (gsr.com.au) runs from Adelaide to Alice Springs. The train stops at Manguri Station, 47km from Coober Pedy. Remember to arrange a pick-up from the station before leaving Adelaide.

When to go

It's cooler between April and October.

Staying there

The top-of-the-range underground lodging is the Desert Cave Hotel (Tel: 1800 088 521, desertcave.com.au) from $195.

Radeka's (Tel: 08 8672 5223, radekadownunder.com.au) is an underground hostel with motel rooms from $105.

Mud Hut Motel (Tel: 08 86 723 003, mudhutmotel.com.au) has fully self-contained, two-bedroom units from $160 and motel rooms with en-suites from $95.

Down to Erth Bed & Breakfast (Tel: 08 8672 5762, downtoerth.com.au) provides bed and breakfast for $150 per couple.

Visit

Umoona Opal Mine & Museum (Tel: 08 867 5288, umoonaopalmine.com.au)

Old Timers Mine (Tel: 08 8672 5555, oldtimersmine.com)

Coober Pedy Opal Fields Golf Club (08 8672 5555). Annual membership for non-locals is $100. Green (or brown) fees and club hire from $10

Tours

Desert Diversity Tours (tel: 1800 069 911, desertdiversity.com) operates the Mail Run and a one-day 4WD tour to the Painted Desert.

© 2007 The Sunday Age

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