Coober Pedy: the outback town that lives underground

Halfway up the Stuart Highway between Adelaide and Alice Springs, the desert is pocked with thousands of white mounds: spoil heaps from opal mines. Among them is Coober Pedy, the self-styled opal capital of the world, a town of about 1,400 people where many homes, churches and even hotels are dug into the hills to escape the heat.

It's a strange, wonderful place to spend a night or two on a road trip north. This guide covers getting there, what to see, and the one stretch of the Stuart Highway you need to plan fuel for.

Why underground?

Coober Pedy gets brutally hot. The average January maximum is 36.7 °C and the record is 48.3 °C, while winter nights can drop to freezing. Since the first opal miners arrived early in the 20th century, people have dug their homes into the hillsides. These dugouts stay at a steady, comfortable temperature all year without air conditioning.

The name is usually said to come from the Kokatha words kupa piti, often translated as “whitefella hole in the ground”.

What to see

• Underground churches. The Serbian Orthodox Church of St Elijah, carved out of the rock and hung with icons, is the most striking. There’s an underground Catholic church too.
• Old Timers Mine. A self-guided walk through an old opal mine and dugout home: the safe way to see the inside of a mine.
• Opal shops and museums. This is where most of the world’s gem-quality opal comes from. Learn the difference between solid opal, doublets and triplets before you buy.
• Film-set leftovers. Coober Pedy has stood in for other planets and post-apocalyptic wastelands in films including Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome and Pitch Black. A spaceship from a film set still sits in town.
• Sleep underground. Several hotels and B&Bs offer underground rooms: totally dark, totally silent, and cool.

The Breakaways

About 32 km north of town, the Kanku-Breakaways Conservation Park is a line of colourful, flat-topped mesas falling away from the plateau. It’s at its best at sunrise and sunset. You need a permit, sold in town (ask at the visitor centre). A loop drive back to town follows part of the Dog Fence, one of the longest fences in the world, built to keep dingoes out of sheep country.

Noodling, and a warning

Noodling, sifting through spoil heaps for chips of opal the miners missed, is a classic Coober Pedy activity, but only in the designated public noodling area. The mining fields around town belong to claim holders.

Never walk around the opal fields on your own. There are thousands of unmarked open mine shafts, some of them tens of metres deep. Stay on roads and paths, and watch children closely. Signs in town say “don’t walk backwards”, and they mean it.

Getting there: the Stuart Highway

It’s 850 km from Adelaide, sealed all the way: north to Port Augusta, then up the Stuart Highway past Woomera and the vast salt lakes.

The fuel gap: fill up at Glendambo; from there it’s about 254 km to Coober Pedy with no fuel. Phone the roadhouse before you rely on it: if Glendambo is closed, the last fuel is at Pimba, about 368 km from Coober Pedy.

When to go

April to October, when days are warm rather than dangerous. In summer, temperatures over 40 °C are common: drive early, carry plenty of water, and don’t break down. If you do, stay with your car.