From Greece to Coober Pedy

Coober Pedy is the largest opal mining area in the world and provides most of the world’s gem quality opals. The town is clearly past its peak, however, and most of the town’s businesses seem to cater to tourists looking for boomerangs and didgeridoos rather than opals.

Most of the residents live underground in houses that have been made from old mine shafts and many of the hotels are made this way too including the Lookout Cave where we stayed.  An underground hotel with a sunset view over the town – an amazing combination.

The hotel is owned by a Greek family and I chatted to the patriarch, Nick. His father moved here in 1959 and Nick followed the year after at age 16 with the rest of his family. He remembers when they came it cost them 250 Pounds but those coming from Britain could get a ticket for 10 Pounds – these migrants are still called the “Ten Pound Poms”.

He worked with two brothers who were pushing a mine into the side of the hill “with axes and dynamite” and who were living in the mined dugouts until the late 1980s. When the mine didn’t work out, they rented the first two dugouts and kept digging more. Later Nick encouraged his daughters to buy the property and they opened the hotel in 1993.

On the hilltop above a very unremarkable frontage, you can see the vents to all the rooms and the original oil drums that lined the first vent to the mine. But when you step into the hallway and rooms, you get a real shock as you enter an entirely different world. Outside is dust and heat and dry wind but inside is a superbly appointed and perfectly laid out luxury hotel. 

The interior is always 22-25 degC year round – whether it’s 50 degC or 5 degC outside. A gem in a hillside where no gems were found.