
Inside the world of Australian opal miners who live underground - endswapper
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-sight/wp/2016/11/16/inside-the-world-of-australian-opal-miners-who-live-underground/
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steveax
In 1990 a friend and I spent a few months driving across Australia and stopped
in Coober Pedy on our way from Alice Springs to Adelaide. We had intended to
just stop for the night but ended up staying a few days because it was such an
unusual place. Highly recommend stopping if you're in the area. The opal fever
is a real thing. Most of the residents that we talked to had made one big
score and were hoping for that next one. My favorite anecdote from there: we
went to the town's drive in theater one night and there was a sign at the
entrance stating "no explosives allowed".

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vr46
Heh, I too spent some time there, and it's definitely a dangerous place to go
walking around at night with all the uncovered disused mineshafts - there's
signs which warn against walking backwards for this reason! The golf course
there is also twinned with St Andrews! There's no grass but they are very
dedicated. Linky:
[http://www.cooberpedygolfclub.com.au](http://www.cooberpedygolfclub.com.au)

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arno_v
"Keep off grass" :D

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AceJohnny2
Where is there what looks like a spaceship straight out of Star Wars in this
GMaps photo of Coober Pedy?

[https://www.google.com/maps/place/Coober+Pedy+SA+5723,+Austr...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Coober+Pedy+SA+5723,+Australia/@-29.009874,134.754536,3a,75y,90t/data=!3m8!1e2!3m6!1s115005181!2e1!3e10!6s%2F%2Flh4.googleusercontent.com%2Fproxy%2FjEmv4Fjo-
FWMnTF1Op_52ZeHMgpTHu5EnfETUOL59iuY5GkkU39vmuD7elalNluJTU7x4y059wjPimQahKJGeNRQv8zvVGo%3Dw172-h86!7i2592!8i1296!4m5!3m4!1s0x2acd47b70d421037:0x4033654628ed3b0!8m2!3d-29.0138504!4d134.753253)

Edit: I thought it may be photoshopped, but it's in the satellite view:

[https://www.google.com/maps/place/111+Hutchison+St,+Coober+P...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/111+Hutchison+St,+Coober+Pedy+SA+5723,+Australia/@-29.0097761,134.7547685,222a,49.3y,2.86t/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x2accdf66fd717823:0x4a1f89c454f25245!8m2!3d-29.0097048!4d134.7540527)

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stijnstijn
It's a prop from Pitch Black, the Vin Diesel movie. This YouTube clip shows
it:
[https://youtu.be/11uE0vKMPKQ?t=7m20s](https://youtu.be/11uE0vKMPKQ?t=7m20s)

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AceJohnny2
Wow, I remember now :D

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yoran
I stayed in Coober Pedy when I drove from Darwin to Melbourne. I remember it
very well for two reasons. One, I thought to myself that it was the most
depressing town I'd ever been. It was hot, dry, dusty and there's literally
nothing around. Also, the vegetation never grows higher than 30 centimeters or
so; you'll notice on the pictures in the article that the only tree you see is
on the painting. Secondly, it's been the only time in my life that I pitched
my tent in an underground camping. The biggest advantage was that I didn't
need to put in the pegs as there was no wind.

On a side note, our neighbor in the camping was a cyclist who cycled from
London to Singapore, took a boat to Perth, and was now cycling through
Australia. I couldn't imagine crossing the desert on a bike, yet he was doing
it. I just checked his Facebook and it turns out that 4 years later he's still
touring the world on his bike!

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Roritharr
Impressive images. For a minute i started googling the composition of opals,
thinking there must be a smarter way to find them... until I stopped and
realised what rabbithole I was beginning to climb down.

~~~
steveax
Finding opals is not the problem, they are everywhere there, finding opals
with valuable color traits is the problem. It's highly random is my
understanding.

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phillc73
I traded opals for a while, but my supply was boulder opals from around
Quilpie in Queensland. Not underground like Coober Pedy and White Cliffs, but
still not a whole lot there![1]

One of the best introductory books about opals is Opal Identification & Value
by Paul B. Downing. It's a few years old now (latest version 2002, first
published 1992), but really does cover all the basics of different types and
their value very well.

[1] [http://www.opalsdownunder.com.au/learn-about-
opals/intermedi...](http://www.opalsdownunder.com.au/learn-about-
opals/intermediate/queensland-opal-mining-fields)

~~~
cpursley
This comment is why I read hacker news.

Talk about finding a "gem" of a comment.

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stupidcar
The photos make it look rather bleak, but it's incredibly bright and sunny,
and when we visited it seemed like a cheerful enough place.

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Agustus
Part of the situation where artists should leave in the meta data the filters,
lenses, and other things they applied in an effort to get a photo ready for an
article. These photos are gritty, amazingly normal for these type of articles.

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rukuu001
I was literally the only guest in an underground hostel when I stayed there. A
very odd feeling sleeping on your own in a rock cave.

Even though I found it a bit bleak, everybody in Australia should see this
place - it's like visiting another country.

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hfsktr
I didn't see it mentioned but how do they survive? I am assuming that the
mining is like freelance work and they sell whatever they find...but to who?
The way it read this is a remote place, where do they get food (I assume not
much grows in that terrain)[0]?

Even if people worked with other residents for favors/barters instead of money
the food thing much be ridiculously expensive to import all of it.

I can imagine hitting that one jackpot find but at the same time not getting
one seems like it would be impossible to survive for long.

[0]This kind of applies to most of Australia I imagine though.

I wish they hadn't filtered all the photos but that's nothing to do with the
place.

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TheSpiceIsLife
_(I assume not much grows in that terrain)[0]_

Not quite.

 _Australian farmers and graziers own 135,997 farms, covering 61% of Australia
's landmass._[1]

 _We are able to export more than half of our agricultural produce, while more
than 90 per cent of fresh fruit and vegetables, meat, milk and eggs sold in
supermarkets are domestically produced._ [2]

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Australia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Australia)

2\. [http://www.agriculture.gov.au/ag-farm-
food/food](http://www.agriculture.gov.au/ag-farm-food/food)

~~~
hfsktr
I had never seen an image of Australia with grass. I've always seen desert or
city (like Sydney). It just never entered my mind that green stuff grew there.
My geography knowledge is horrid so I just figured whatever I saw on tv/images
was what it was like all over. Really cool that it's not actually the case.

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stephen_g
That's interesting - I thought our tourism board advertised our beaches, huge
rainforests in the north and big wine regions down south pretty widely.

There is a lot of desert but that's pretty much all in the middle of the
country where almost nobody lives.

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kw71
Some guys stopped here on a roadtrip and interviewed one of the residents and
showed his underground home.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfXGuH_I9do](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfXGuH_I9do)

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treehau5
Coober Pedy has one of the most beautiful underground churches I have ever
seen
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1sINQ77Q28](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1sINQ77Q28)

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dghughes
Ancient plant and animals fossilized in opal look amazing.

Opal is made of tiny spheres of silicon I have no idea why I didn't know that
all these years I guess to me opal never looked like dull grey silicon.

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andrewflnr
Opal is made of small spheres of _silica_ , SiO2, the same material as quartz.

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dghughes
Aww :(

Well I was 33% right.

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andrewflnr
More than that, by mass anyway. :)

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Nursie
I wish I'd known it was that interesting, I'd have dropped by on my grand tour
a few years ago. Maybe one for the next time I visit.

