Spending a day in Coober Pedy – On our way home

It has been a few days since I showed any photos from my Central Australia trip, but I still have more images.

The images today are not necessarily pretty, but they do give you an idea of what Coober Pedy is like. It would probably never make the list for Australia’s Most Beautiful Town. That doesn’t mean that it is ugly, it is just different.

Ultimately it is a mining town. Most people are there because of Opals. It is said to be the Opal capital of the world. I don’t know how true that is, but it is famous for its opals.

All around the town, there are just these mounds of dirt. If you didn’t know better you might think they were ant hills. That is what they reminded me of.

When you are driving towards it you know when you are getting close because you start to see those hills everywhere. I mean there is nothing else there really.

Before we did this trip I thought the place that would seem really desolate would be around Uluru. However, that place was paradise compared to Coober Pedy. There were almost no trees, barely any vegetation at all. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a place like that before.

While it did look like a doomsday event or something like that, it was also incredibly beautiful. The colours of the dirt varied from white through to red and lots in between. I couldn’t get over it.

There are other reminders of the mining everywhere as well. Old trucks and things that they used for the mining were just left lying around. Almost like it broke down and was then abandoned. (click on the images in the gallery to get a larger view.)

Apparently, a lot of miners have left. I guess there isn’t as much money in opals as there once was. I don’t know really know, I am assuming here. We were told some devasting stories. One theme was about loneliness and feelings of isolation.

There is a place you can go to where you can see from a higher vantage point all around. I think it was called the Big Winch. You can see a lot from it. Here are a couple of images.

From up there you could see this too. See if you recognise anything in the photo.

The backend of our spaceship. I suppose you can see from this that I change the image a bit. Creative licence and all that.

There were other things we found that seemed to belong on another planet or another era, who knows?

That was sitting on top of a dugout. That is what they call the homes there. Dug out of the rocks. I have spoken about that before.

It is another thing that Coober Pedy is quite famous for. A lot of people live underground.

In all the images you get to see all those amazing colours of the dirt. In some, it also seemed like it was affecting the colour of the sky.

This sort of landscape just goes on for kilometres or miles. Look at the horizon line.

It was quite eye-opening as a place. I’ve never been anywhere like it before. It was sad, but there is beauty there if you go looking for it. It was without a doubt an amazing place to photograph. I wish I’d had more time there, but who knew?

Have you ever been to a place that you just clicked with and wanted to explore more?