Australia. What do we know about the "Green Continent"? Cute koalas and kangaroos, natives, boomerangs, plastic banknotes... But Australia is also a land of opals. A small town ok Coober Pedy in South Australia is its opal capital. It is believed that the opal stone calms the nerves, heals the heart, warns the owner about the presence of poison in food, and even gives the gift of prophecy! ..

COOBER PEDI, AUSTRALIA: A unique boulder opal found by miners in Coober Pedy. Coober Pedy is the capital of Australia's "opal rush". © Dmitry Chulov.

The man who first called Australia the "Green Continent" must have been joking. It is green only along the coast, and in the center is a barren desert, the bottom of a parched ancient inland sea. Right in the middle of it is Coober Pedy.

Center map

Movement

By bike

Passing through

South Australia is one of the driest regions of the Fifth Continent. Most of its territory is covered with endless deserts, scrubs and salt marshes. But it is in its depths that the real underground pantry of the country is located.

COOBER PEDI, AUSTRALIA: The colorful hills of the Brayways Nature Reserve at sunset. The bowels of the earth under these hills hide great riches. © Dmitry Chulov.

The mining town is lost in the endless desert. Instead of trees, grasses and flowers, there are stones, sand and heat below plus 50. Episodes of films about life after a global catastrophe were filmed here more than once. Even the inscriptions on the fences here are appropriate: “Welcome to Hell!”, Which means “ Welcome to Hell!»

It is located 10 hours north of Adelaide. Here, in this sun-scorched, dusty city, seekers of happiness and adventurers from all over the world come together. After all, Coober Pedy is the capital of Australia's ongoing "opal fever".

COOBER PEDI, AUSTRALIA: A miners' car parked in the desert at the entrance to Australia's opal fever capital. © Dmitry Chulov.

Around Coober Pedy, like in a minefield, there are signs. " Don't go near the mines!' are the stern warnings. The area of ​​opal mines stretches for tens of kilometers around. Over the years of fever here have dug about one and a half million mines! The local landscape is called by the locals " moon valley».

Coming to Australia was his childhood dream. Two years after arriving at Green Continent" Gennady Karpenko ended up in scorched desert. He is a carver: he looks for opals and processes them in his workshop.

Australia produces 95% of all opals in the world. This stone has been familiar to locals since time immemorial. True, Australian aborigines have always bypassed opals - they believe that a spirit with a human head and a snake's body lives underground, luring people with the magical brilliance of multi-colored stones.

Opals were found here by accident in 1915. Now Coober Pedy is the richest deposit in the country. Its name comes from the distorted "Kupa Piti", which in the language of the Australian aborigines means ... "white people in a hole."

COOBER PEDI, AUSTRALIA: A sign warning that the surrounding desert has been spontaneously dug up by opal miners. © Dmitry Chulov.

On the belt - a battery, on the forehead - a flashlight, in the hands - an ultraviolet lamp - the standard equipment of the local miner. Gennady agreed to show us the places where he had recently managed to find large opals. There are no security guarantees. Any mine here can collapse at any moment. The search for opals is a dangerous business in which everyone works at their own peril and risk!

Gennady, opal carver: “Crack on this side, see? Sometimes it can be dangerous, everything can collapse here.”

Opals in Coober Pedy are sought in mines at a depth of 25-30 meters. Someone rises to the surface for years with nothing, and someone can turn into a millionaire in one day ...

COOBER PEDI, AUSTRALIA: Gennady Karpenko looking for opals in a mine. © Dmitry Chulov.

In the face, Gennady knows every turn of the adit - he spent more than one day here, underground, with a lantern and a pickaxe.

Gennady, opal carver: “I found a few opals in the rock up there, a little - here ...”

His favorite sound in the mine is the crunch of breaking glass. With this, opals are taken out of the breed. After all, opal, in fact, is glass sintered by nature, due to the presence of various elements and inclusions, it plays with bright sparks in the light. This stone is better visible in ultraviolet light. Therefore, Gennady now and then turns on a blue lamp in the darkness of the mine.

Gennady, opal carver: “Sometimes when people blast rock in a mine, then they can miss some of the opals. And you, following them, through their garbage, you can find a vein that will bring 3, 5 10 thousand dollars ... "

COOBER PEDI, AUSTRALIA: Mining equipment at work in one of the opal mines. © Dmitry Chulov.

From this one of the niches, by laying explosives, his neighbor miners recently took out opals for ... 380 thousand dollars!

Gennady, opal carver: “No one here asks anyone how much you found, how you sold - this is not accepted in Coober Pedy. There is a lot of cash in this business!”

There are not many places left in the world where you can legally get rich in just one day! Some call it "opal fever", others - fortune, others - playing roulette. In the face, you can walk a few centimeters from the most valuable stone and not find it. And you can accidentally stumble upon an opal vein!

Gennady, opal carver:“When from the wall, where there is nothing, from a small crack suddenly opens such, such a thickness of opal! When they are with color, you just stop breathing! You just forget how you breathe!”

COOBER PEDI, AUSTRALIA: Prospector Rade shows opalized shells he found in the ground. © Dmitry Chulov.

Dust, wind and an excavator devouring tens of liters of diesel fuel per day. Many opal seekers, having arrived briefly spend in Coober Pedy all life. You just need to stake out a plot - anyone can do it. Father and son Rade and Roger open pit opals. From the age of 12 (!) my son masterfully manages the excavator bucket. The father, who came here in search of happiness back in 1967, is now over 70. He carefully examines the stones below so as not to miss the cobblestone, which may contain opal, relying on experience and intuition.

Rade, the opal seeker:“I have found black, pink, green, crystal, all kinds of opals. True, I was not as lucky as other miners. I had enough to pay my bills and to live. I must be the biggest loser of all the old people that work at Coober Pedy!”

COOBER PEDI, AUSTRALIA: The famous boulder opal found in Coober Pedy. Boulder is a type of opal in the form of a layer in the rock. The world's largest boulders are found in Coober Pedy. © Dmitry Chulov.

The pride of Rade and Roger is a huge " boulder” is the opal they keep at home. There is no other like it in the world! They are in no hurry to sell it and show it only on special occasions.

In small Coober Pedy, there are several dozen shops that sell opals. The most valuable of them are pink and black. Depending on the size and quality, the price of processed opals can reach several tens of thousands of dollars!

Dubica works in one of Coober Pedy's opal shops. Prices here are lower than in big cities Australia: those who sell stones here are those who find and process them themselves.

COOBER PEDI, AUSTRALIA: A polished opal that sparkles with multi-coloured sparks in the light. © Dmitry Chulov.

Dubica, salesperson: "This stone is a crystal opal, big size, transparent and clean. Look, you can see all the colors of the rainbow in it, and the more red there is in the opal, the more valuable it is.”

This stone glows devilishly in the light, its flickering enchants. But during processing, the opal loses up to 2/3 of its volume, and may even crack, losing its value. Opal is as fragile as glass. It is enough to drop it, and the holographic beauty can break into thousands of fragments. Therefore, only experienced craftsmen can work with opal.

COOBER PEDI, AUSTRALIA: A cut opal in the hands of a carver. © Dmitry Chulov.

Gennady, opal carver: “If the stone is very expensive, sometimes it can be up to $1,000 per carat, it is very difficult to cut it…”

Cutting is the most critical stage in the processing of opal. Sometimes the master looks at the stone for hours, not knowing how to approach it.

Gennady, opal carver:“Processing an opal is always a surprise, a lottery. You can just cut and get a colorless stone in two parts, and sometimes you see how the stone begins to play in your hands!

Carvers say that opal should be felt with hands, only then the master will be lucky in his work. And luck is just what the Australian town of Coober Pedy, gripped by the “opal fever” of our time, needs so much!

You can watch the video version of this article in the form of a report about Coober Pedy, filmed by me for the program "Their Morals" (NTV), you can here:

Write in the comments what else would you like to know more about Australia?

We invite you to look underground and visit the extraordinary underground city of Coober Pedy, where about 2 thousand people currently live.

At first, when you find yourself on these sun-hot red plains of Australia and you see a not very rich in buildings, an absolutely “clean” landscape, it seems that the place is completely lifeless. But in fact, there is a stunning mysterious town called Coober Pedy.

And what makes it special is the fact that this city is underground.

There are no trees here, and the sun bakes with merciless force, but many kilometers of tunnels are laid underground and furnished, as if in ordinary residential buildings, rooms.

However, there is also accommodation for tourists coming here. From this corridor, the doors just lead to the guest rooms.

The locals settled here quite comfortably. Some houses are only half underground, which only adds to their uniqueness. It is worth noting that in terms of comfort they are in no way inferior to ordinary modern houses.

The history of the origin of the original city began in 1915, when a father and son ended up here, traveling in search of gold.

They did not find gold here, but they found beautiful opals, which quickly gained no less popularity.

The miners who came here could not withstand the high temperatures of the local climate and therefore built their houses not above the ground, but right between the mines.

They began to dig long tunnels, so that over time, about 1,500 dugout houses appeared in Coober Pedy.

In the modern world, Coober Pedy has long been the main supplier of opals. However, people come here no longer to look at precious stones, but to see strange dugouts, the dwellings of people living here.

The name of the city means "white man's hole", this expression appeared here in the 1920s.

In addition to mines, hotels and houses, there is also a beautiful church underground in Coober Pedy.

As well as an underground bookstore.

And an underground jewelry store offering a charming opal from the mines next door.

Undoubtedly, you should also visit the underground bar to have a drink with friends.

And then go upstairs and play golf on a specially equipped site.

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.

16 PHOTOS

1. Most likely, the name of the city is associated with its unusual underground houses. In the Aboriginal language, koopa piti, from which the name Coober Pedy is derived, means ‘white man’s hole’. 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. There are no tall trees in the city, 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).

In one of the driest parts of Australia, where instead of rain there are sandstorms, and there is no water even underground, the Australians have equipped an underground city with all the attributes of social life.

In the state of South Australia, on the eastern border of the Great Victoria Desert is the city of Coober Pedy. It got its name from the aborigines, who called the settlement of new Australians in their ancestral lands "the white man's hole". And the city itself arose as a settlement of miners. In 1915, noble opal was discovered in the Stewart Range, and later it turned out that layers of precious stone lie here, amounting to 30% of the world's reserves.

From the heat underground

Climatic conditions of Coober Pedi are very severe. Exhausting heat during the day gives way to a sharp drop in temperature at night. The temperature difference reaches 20 degrees. Clouds of flies stick to the surface of a person. In addition, sandstorms often occur. To hide from the heat and all-penetrating sand, the first settlers of the mining village began to equip their homes in the worked-out mines. Features of the development of the opal deposit required laying shallow horizontal mines in the form of tunnels with branches. Miners with their families began to settle in such sleeves.

Under the ground, real apartments of several rooms were equipped. To keep cool, one or two windows were usually cut through near the front door, thus the air temperature was naturally maintained at about 22-24 degrees.

Churches, shops, workshops, a cemetery were built underground.

Today, a few residents of the city live both in underground dwellings and in above-ground ones, with air conditioners installed to create a comfortable atmosphere. The dug houses are fully equipped with modern means of comfort - sewerage, electricity, water supply. There is even a choice in interior decoration - natural, when the walls of rooms cut in stone are simply covered with a special compound for cleanliness, and modern - stone walls are sheathed with plasterboard, and such a house is indistinguishable from other houses in Australia.

main treasure

As already mentioned, the city arose on a deposit of opals. There is a museum, shops, hotels, a small local airport. Feature films are often shot in fantastic surrounding landscapes. In the city and its environs, the surviving remains of scenery, various mechanisms and aircraft remind of this.

But the main treasure in these desert lands- water. The nearest artesian well was dug 25 km from Coober Pedy. No matter how much they searched, there was no water. In the old days, water was brought here by pack caravans and it was worth its weight in gold. Modern residents of the city receive water from a laid water pipe, but its price is much higher than in other regions of the country.

• Iron trees grow in the city - decoration with familiar forms
• The most common form of vegetation is cacti.
• Dug out underground houses are called Dugout
• Churches are open for free visits, the main thing when leaving is not to forget to turn off the lights, which is what the signs at the entrance ask for
• The small population of the city consists of 45 nationalities.
• Blower - a machine-vacuum cleaner for sucking rock from the mine to the surface

How to get there

Coober Pedy is located off the Stewart Highway between Adelaide and Alice Springs. The nearest city, Port Augusta, is 500 kilometers away.

Coober Pedy is a convenient place to take a tour on the way to the Red Center from Adelaide. If desired, in the underground city, you can stay overnight in a local underground hotel. If you are traveling in Australia, you will certainly use the Stewart Highway, which crosses the mainland from south to north, passing through the states of South Australia and the Northern Territories, it is simply impossible to drive past Coober Pedy.

Coober Pedy is a small city in the central part of the Australian state of South Australia.

The population was estimated in 2008 to be approximately 2,000 people.

Uber Pedy is about 800 km away. from Adelaide, not far Railway from Adelaide to Alice Springs. Immediate big cities- Port Augusta (500 km to the south) and Alice Springs (600 km to the north).

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, 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, shimmering with all the colors of the rainbow.

Only private entrepreneurs are engaged in the extraction of opals. Nevertheless, this industry brings the Australian economy about 30 million dollars annually.

The city is known as the Opal Capital of the World because it has one of the richest opal deposits, containing about 30% of the world's opal reserves.

The name Coober Pedy is translated from the language Australian aborigines as "white man's hole" or "white man underground".

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Due to the harsh temperature regime and the prevailing mining industry, people permanently reside in underground caves, in the shafts of mines remaining after mining.

Even the first settlers realized that due to adverse 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 opal mining.

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 manner.

Almost all mines are shallow and the main passages in them are laid by drilling 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, through a pipe lowered into the mine,

like a vacuum cleaner, it sucks rocks and boulders to the surface, and when the compressor is turned off, the barrel opens and a new mini-mound is obtained - a waste heap.

At the entrance to the city there is a huge sign with a blower car.

One of the sights of the city is an iron tree - the children of the first settlers asked dad for a tree, so he made a tree out of iron.

Even the first prospectors realized that it was possible to settle down relatively comfortably underground, in dwellings that cost almost nothing.

As for their successors, they and their families live in modern underground comfort.

Many of their houses are very large and simply luxurious ...

Some even have underground pools, while not far away, on the surface, the sun mercilessly scorches the earth.

However, life in the opal mines is still hard, and many miners return in time with their families to an easier life elsewhere.

By the way, an article about the city underground and the people living in it, which appeared in Great Britain in 1927, prompted J. R. R. Tolkien to create in 1937, the second most popular literary work after the Bible, The Hobbit, and then, and Lord of the Rings…

Coober Pedy is included in many tourist routes across Australia. People come here to see the underground churches and the cemetery.

The first trees that could be seen in the city were welded from pieces of iron. The city has local movable grass golf courses and golfers line small patches of "turf" around the tee hole.

The scenery of Coober Pedy is very conducive to outdoor shooting of extraterrestrial civilizations ... Films such as Mad Max 3: Under Thunderdome, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Pitch Black were filmed here.

Coober Pedy hosts The Amazing Race for the second season.

In the area of ​​Coober Pedy, approximately in 2012, they are going to conduct an experiment-exercise of an expedition to Mars ...

Local historians distinguish the world's largest livestock farm and the world's longest "Australian" fence from local attractions.

Standard bedrooms in a home cave with a hall, kitchen and bathroom are located in caves drilled inside the mountain, similar to houses on the surface.
Thus, a constant optimum temperature is maintained, while on the surface it reaches 40 ° C (maximum 55 ° C), at this temperature many household appliances become unusable. But relative humidity rarely reaches 20% on hot days.

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Much of Coober Pedy's attraction is inside the mines, the cemetery and the underground churches. The first trees that could be seen in the city were welded from pieces of iron.

The city has local golf courses with moving grass and golfers line small pieces of "turf" around for the first hit.

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Coober Pedy is included in many tourist routes in Australia. Movies such as Mad Max 3: Under Thunderdome, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, and Pitch Black were filmed against the backdrop of Coober Pedy. Approximately in 2012, they are going to conduct an experiment-exercise of an expedition to Mars.

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What do these celebrities have in common?

— Rolling Stones (Rolling Stones)

— Ricky Martin (Ricky Martin)

— Alanis Morissette (Alanis Morissette)

— Janet Jackson (Janet Jackson)

— Billy Joel (Billy Joel)

— Neil Diamond (Neil Diamond)

— Fleetwood Mack (Fleetwood Mac)

— Matchbox Twenty (Matchbox Twenty)

— Acey Disi (AC/DC)

Well, it is clear that they are all world-class musicians, fame, recognition, money, fans ... but we are not interested in this now.

All of them visited Melbourne. It's already warmer.

What you and I really need to know is that all of these stars (and many more) while on tour in Australia have chosen and bought the famous Australian gemstone opals from the same absolutely fantastic person and a good friend of mine (of which I am immensely proud) — Nicholas Le Suef.

Nick Le Suef in front of himself at the age of 25. The picture was taken in Coober Pedy - the underground city of prospectors and the capital of Australian opals

Believe me - THESE people could afford to buy opals in ANY other store in Melbourne or Sydney, but they all chose Nick.

Rolling Stones - Ricky Martin - Alanis Morissette - Janet Jackson - Billy Joel - Neil Diamond - Fleetwood Mac) - Matchbox Twenty - Acey DC (AC / DC) and other famous buyers of Nick.

At the age of 25, Nick already knew perfectly well how to look for precious opals.

But the years take their toll, and when it became physically difficult for Nick to mine opals, he opened a store and began to sell them.

It's still 20 years old :)

At 70 years old, Nick knows how to take care of his customers. target="_blank">https://www.factroom.ru/facts/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/10-300x225.jpg 300w" style="border: 0px; width: 730px height: auto;" width="550" />

The underground art gallery is dedicated to Aboriginal art. It houses exhibitions that tell about the process of mining opal. Visitors are given the opportunity to dig their own gemstone.