Coober Pedy - Opal town!
When you say Coober Pedy, you say opal-opal-opal! Coober Pedy is Australia's biggest opal supplier, the majority of Australian opals are found here. Many kilometers before you enter the town, you already see the big piles of dirt and sand, like molehills. Anyone can claim a 50 square meters of land in Coober Pedy and start digging for opals and this brings a very vibrant, almost frantic, and a kind of greedy atmosphere to the town. Basically, all people are hoping for good fortune and hope to find that one big vain of high - quality black opal which will make them rich.

We took a tour with George, a local, to the typical underground houses and Serbian underground church. Because of the extreme heat in summer in Coober Pedy (the mercury will
rise to 50 degrees and above) people started to make underground-houses to beat the heat. These houses are so popular nowadays that they cost a good deal of money. Living in an
underground-house provides also an extra opportunity for finding opal: if you enlarge your house with an extra room, you have to dig out a fair bit and George told us, people found opal worth over 20.000 dollars this way. Not bad ey?

Next to all the opal-fever, Coober Pedy has a very nice attraction that has nothing to do with opal: a kangaroo orphanage. Unfortunately, mother kangaroos get killed by roadtrains and cars (Coober Pedy is right next to the Stuart Highway) and their babies are left behind in their pouches. Sometimes, these babies are lucky and are taken to this orphanage, are raised there and released into the wild after they are 1 year old. All the kangaroos here have sad stories, some are mentally 'strange' and behave weird. Sad to hear and see but really positive to see there's a place like this, so lovely and nice in a surrounding such as Coober Pedy's. Have a look at our photos, cute as a button!