Tuesday, November 01, 2011

Coober Pedy

Strange place Coober Pedy - a bit of the wild west in it.  It's an opal mining town where a lot of people come for a short time but they find opals, grow beards and never leave.  If it wasn't for Coober Pedy there would be nothing here - except maybe an extension of one of the regions whopping cattle station.  Instead, the landscape is dotted with mounds like a whole lot of human sized rabbits have dug burrows here - and they have in the search to strike it big with a haul of opals.  The majority of the houses and hotels are built into mounds of sandstone - a nice way to avoid 40 degree days.

Night storm brewing

View of the town with everything built into the mounds of sandstone

Serbian church

"Blower" truck used to suck out waste from the mine

Mounts (tailings) from opal mining accross the plains


The Breakaways


1 comment:

Graeme said...

Only Australia could have towns like this. I like the rabbit mound analogy.