This blog is about Australia‘s hidden gem. The place that I have selected for this blog is truly a hidden gem because the city is hidden underground. Although around 60% of coober pedy is hidden underground, it is still a city bustling with activity with some tourists (around 15000 per year) and some residents.
One of the main reason as to why over half of this city is under ground is that it is very hot in coober pedy, during the summers, temperature here can get up to 50 degree celcius.
It is said that around 150 million years ago coober pedy was completely covered by the ocean but in due coarse of time due to the change in water levels it was no longer covered by water, but during the change in water silica solutions were deposited into the ground, causing the formation of opals. Before getting the name coober pedy this place was called the stuart range opal field named after john mcdouall stuartwho was the first European explorer to visit this place.
Coober Pedy is called the opal capital of the world. The insane amount of opals present here attracted many people to open mines and start a living here. In 2021 this town only had a population of 1,566 people.
Despite the struggles of living underground, the residents of Coober Pedy, have well ventilated their underground town. Coober Pedy not only has houses but also tourist attractions.
Let us see some of them here:
OLD TIMERS MINE
The old timers mine is the oldest mine in Coober Pedy, this was established in the early 20th century. This has also proven helpful in making Coober Pedy the opal capital of the world.
UMOONA OPAL MINE AND MUSEUM
As the name suggests this place is a mine as well as a museum.In this place we can get to know some part of the history of the aborginal settlements here and also view fossils from the south Australian museum. If we visit this place through a guided tour we can get to see the opal mine, an underground home and a documentary show “The story of opal”.
Coober pedy not only has mines and museums but also underground churches some of these underground churches are :
1) Catacomb church
2) Serbian orthodox church
3) St peter and St paul catholic church
WELL BEING LABYRINTH
The well being labyrinth in coober pedy proves to be a relaxing place which relieves stress, it is made of the classical 7 seed circuit pattern.
KANKU-BREAKAWAYS CONSERVATIONAL PARK
This park covers 15,000 hectares of land. The main attraction here is the endemic flora and fauna species which includes the acacias, mallee, eremophilia ect… which are the flora and red kangaroos ,euro ,echidna ect… which are the fauna.
Jhanavi K Sharma VIII A