Coober Pedy Part 2 (the attractions we visited)

There are quite a few different attractions for tourists. We saw some of them, and this is my review.

Fayes Underground Home
This is an interesting house that is open to the public. It is now run by caretakers but gives you a good opportunity to explore an underground home. There were two things I really liked about this. The first, and it would be true of any underground home in Coober Pedy, is if you need an extra shelf or a new room, you can just dig it out yourself. Obviously there are some regulations about extending homes but to be able to dig a bigger shelf when you buy a bigger TV or something new is pretty cool. The second thing I really liked is the indoor pool. It stays a very consistent temperature of around 23 degrees, I think it was. Faye's story is very interesting too.

Old Timers Mine
You can do a nice self guided tour through the Old Timers mine. It is interesting to see how they used to mine. It is quite similar to any old time mining, but looking at some of the tunnels that people lay on their backs to mine, they were so small and confining, it is interesting to see and imagine being in that position. There is a shaft that goes up to the surface with foot and hand holds alternating up the sides, showing one of the ways miners would access their mine. There is also an example of a 1916 underground house and a modern house as part of this tour.

Serbian Underground Church
We visited this church quite late and the end of a long day, so we didn't get a great feel for it, but it is a very beautiful building. They're not very good photos as it was quite dark.

Umoona Museum
We didn't spend much time here as Rory had had enough but it had a lot of information about the geology of the area, opals, opal mining and the history of Coober Pedy. It is free to visit and definitely worth a look.

Opalios
Opalios isn't an attraction, as such, it is an opal shop but I have to make mention of it as we were so well treated in there. They had a little toy digger that Rory could play with while we looked at jewellery. Stella and George were so interesting to talk to. George talked to Greg for ages about opal mining in general, and their opal mine, which he and his father mine. His father has been mining for a very long time. He was an absolute wealth of knowledge and information and it was worth the time we were in there to talk with them. They had some polished stones and gave us one each, which was very generous. And their prices were pretty reasonable, I think.

Water Station
OK, so this isn't really an attraction but because water is so expensive and scarce in Coober Pedy, you can't connect your van to water or fill it at the caravan parks. You need  to go to the 24 hour water service centre where it costs 20c for 30L of water. I thought this might be interesting for those of you who've never been to somewhere where water is so incredibly scarce.

We all enjoyed Coober Pedy and a future visit is possibly on the cards (not sure when or how). The only thing I think I would have liked to see is a modern working mine, just to see how it is done these days, rather than in the days gone by where it was all done by pick. There is at least one working mine you can visit so perhaps next time we will do that.