Coober Pedy: Living underground - Domain

Coober Pedy is a different world. In fact, it looks so much like a far-off desert planet that it has stood in for Mars in a series of Hollywood blockbusters. The pink sandstone formations rising out of the red dirt, framed by a sapphire blue sky, create an ethereal beauty easily mistaken for outer space. Dotted around the 100-year-old mining town, halfway between Adelaide and Alice Springs, are the abandoned props from those films: a dilapidated spaceship here, paper mache aliens there. The eerie celestial monuments punctuate the red streets alongside discarded mining equipment and weathered opal shop signs. Welcome to the opal capital of the world and the strangest town in Australia. Coober Pedy’s heyday is well behind it and it seems frozen in the ’80s – the last opal boom. Mining has declined sharply since the ’90s, as the old guard dies off and the town transitions into its new life as an offbeat tourist attraction.