In the remote South Australian desert, temperatures reach 125 °F / 51 °C – in the shade. Can you imagine the air conditioning bills? Neither could the residents of Coober Pedy, the world’s only underground town.
Coober Pedy is a mining town in Australia. If it weren't for the huge opal reserves here, no one would live in this hellscape that was used to shoot the post-apocalyptic film Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.
(Photo: Nachoman-au)
But that's only how it looks like from the surface. Go below, and you can find comfortable and well-decorated churches, a bar, and other amenities that you'd expect from a modern town. No one wants to spend a lot of time on the baking hot surface, so they cut rooms into the rock.
(Photo: eyeintim)
There are about 1,500 homes in the town. They're called "dug outs." In a typical house, the kitchen and bathroom are on the surface or close to the entry hole because they need water access. But the rest is below ground.
(Photo: Werner Bayer)
The construction style does offer some advantages. When you need a new addition to your house, all you need to do to get started is cut a room out of a wall of your house. And since it's all opal mining territory, you may find valuable rock that can pay for the cost of the expansion.
(c) Albert Llaussas
There's a fun bar called The Desert Cave. It can get loud there, but that's okay. Because the walls of every home in the town are made of rock, the noise from the bar won't disturb you.
(Photo: Charles Bukowsky)
When you do venture up onto the surface, keep in mind that you're in the middle of a mining complex. There are specific dangers that you'll have to worry about.
(Photo: Rob Chandler)
The barren landscape is unappealing to many people, but movie directors love it. It was ideal for Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome and the 2000 Vin Diesel movie Pitch Black. That movie was about a spaceship that crashed into a desert on an alien world. When filmmakers wrapped up production of Pitch Black, they left the spaceship prop at Coober Pedy. It's now one of the local tourist attractions.
Find out more in this insider’s tour of the town:
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