Spaceship from the set of the movie, The Chronicles of Riddick: Pitch Black, which was shot around Coober Pedy in 2000. The craft is in Hutchison Street. Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert were also filmed around Coober Pedy and The Breakaways.
Underground church (above and below)
Coober Pedy Golf Course
Coober Pedy is a very small town with a big reputation for being the most eccentric place in Australia, if not the world. There is very little about Coober Pedy that can be described as normal, and it the town's uniqueness, and not just the quality of the opals mined around the town, that has made it a magnet for outback travellers.
Situated in the South Australian outback about halfway between Adelaide and Alice Springs, this opal mining town has become a popular stopover point and tourist destination, especially since the completion of the sealing of the Stuart Highway in 1987.
While many visitors come for the opals, the majority come to experience the eccenticity. For starters, the first tree ever seen in the town was welded together from scrap iron. It still sits on a hilltop overlooking the town. The local golf course - mostly played at night with glowing balls, to avoid daytime temperatures - is completely free of grass and golfers take a small piece of "turf" around to use for teeing off.
In Coober Pedy, just about everybody lives below ground, mostly in old mines refurbished. Even the local church is underground. The harsh summer desert temperatures mean that many residents prefer to live in caves bored into the hillsides. A standard three-bedroom cave home with lounge, kitchen, and bathroom can be excavated out of the rock in the hillside for a similar price to a house on the surface. It remains at a constant temperature, whereas surface living needs air-conditioning, especially during the summer months, when temperatures often exceed 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit). The relative humidity rarely gets over 20% on these hot days, and the skies are usually cloud-free. The average maximum temperature is 30-32 degrees Celsius, but it can get quite cool in the winter.
The Breakaways
The hinterland, notably the Breakaways and Moon Plain, looks more like the surface of the moon than mother earth. For this reason, it has featured as backdrops in films including Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, Red Planet, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Pitch Black and Salute of the Jugger which made considerable use of locals as extras. Coober Pedy also featured in the second season of the TV series, The Amazing Race. The music video for INXS's "Kiss The Dirt (Falling Down the Mountain)" was shot at Moon Plains. The town is a pivotal location in Wim Wenders' 1999 film Until the End of the World.
At the 2006 census, the town's population was 1,916 (1,084 males, 832 females, including 268 indigenous Australians). The name 'Coober Pedy' comes from the local Aboriginal term kupa-piti, which means 'boys' waterhole'.
How to get there: Coober Pedy is situated in northern South Australia, 846 kilometres north of Adelaide on the Stuart Highway. The town is served by daily coach services from Adelaide. The Ghan serves the town through the Manguri Siding, 42km from Coober Pedy, which is served by trains twice weekly in each direction. Passengers on The Ghan are not usually allowed to disembark at Manguri unless they have prearranged transport due to the siding's isolation and the extremely cold temperatures at night.
Coober Pedy is a gateway to the outback communities of Oodnadatta and William Creek, which are both located on the Oodnadatta Track. There is a twice-a-week mail run from Coober Pedy to these communities and other outback homesteads. It carries the mail, general freight and passengers. Regional Express has direct flights to Adelaide, from Coober Pedy Airport.
Brief history: Aboriginal people have a long-standing connection with the area. The first European to pass near the site of Coober Pedy was John McDouall Stuart in 1858, but the town was not established until after 1915, when opal was discovered by Willie Hutchinson. Miners first moved in around about 1916.
