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Shopping for Opals in Coober Pedy
Most people come to Coober Pedy because of opals. It’s known as the Opal Capital of the World because it’s one of the few places where high-quality opals are found.. I was looking for a good opal as a present for a friend’s birthday and since I was on a road trip around Australia at the time, it seemed like a good idea. The town of Coober Pedy is located north of South Australia and around 900 km north of Adelaide. Like all visitors to the town who come by car, I had had to take a side trip from a long drive on the Stuart Highway to get there.
The other thing Coober Pedy is famous for besides the opals is the fact that almost half of the population here live underground to escape the extreme temperatures on the surface and the occasional dust storm. Even though I was there on a buying mission without much time to spare, experiencing the heat outside first-hand made me curious about how the local town people can actually survive. As I couldn’t very well peek into their homes, I did the next best thing and checked out the historic underground house or ‘dugout’, as the locals call it, in the Umoona Opal Mine and Museum.
Amazingly, the original dugouts created by the settlers really were literally dug out, with shovels and picks and a huge amount of hard work and determination. I can’t imagine doing it myself, but much respect goes to those gutsy long-ago miners! Thankfully, modern dugouts are now dug out with efficient heavy machinery and once I got past the lack of windows and the rocky walls, I have to admit the house seemed very snug and cozy. Apparently the name Coober Pedy is said to come from the Aboriginal phrase kupa piti – “white man in a hole” – but some of the modern dugouts were anything but hole-like. Apparently some of these underground homes even have swimming pools!
Back to my shopping mission: I discovered I was particularly apt in choosing to visit the Museum, as there was an excellent Opal Show Room here, where I was quickly captivated by the sheer prettiness of the opals on display. Red, black, green, blue; it was a riot of colours. Many of the rocks were carved or set into jewellery, but my personal favourites were the loose stones rattling around the display cases. I was quite taken by the variety of colours and shapes available, as well as the prices – some of these rainbow-hues rocks were selling for a pretty penny indeed and apparently, the better quality ones could sell for over ten thousand dollars! I could see why thousands of hopeful diggers came to Coober Pedy in the early days. It was the eternal siren call of high-stakes gambling; most miners never struck it rich, but those lucky few who did could become instant millionaires. If you asked the locals, you’d hear plenty of stories here about residents digging themselves a new room for their house and finding enough opals to pay for the excavation, and so on. Apparently, in quite a few of the motels and dorms in town, guests can even find raw opals in the walls or floor – basically prospecting without even leaving their rooms!
I had been looking for a loose stone to be set into a necklace when I got home, which was duly bought, but along the way I somehow ended up with a lovely reddish-grey pendant which kept calling out, buy me, buy me…I have to admit, after a few hours poring over opals of all shapes and hues, and hearing the many rags-to-riches stories from the Museum staff, I was a little tempted to stay and maybe look around the motels for a room (ahem). It was definitely tempting - but as the afternoon wore on and the chilly evening started to set in, I realized I had a long drive still ahead of me. Maybe the next time I come back, I’ll stay a bit longer and try my luck…
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Article Information This article was written by Alia H. Anuar and was first published on 14 June 2007. This article is free for personal and commercial reproduction, with the following terms and conditions.
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The
very first thing which struck me about Coober Pedy when I arrived was its sheer
barrenness – altogether a few sandy coloured buildings surrounded by rocky,
sandy plains almost as far as the eye could see. According to statistics, Coober
Pedy is home to about 3,500 people, but I didn’t see a single soul as I pulled
into town. This was almost certainly because of the second thing which struck me
as I got out of my air-conditioned car – the blistering heat! The temperature
must have been well into the 40s degree Celsius that day, and in the height of
summer I was told that it can soar up into the 50s. If I’d been paying more
attention to my guidebook (or even to the scenery around me as I was driving
in), this might not have come as such a surprise!