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Deep in the heart of South Australia, blistering heat and billowing dust hide a truly irreplaceable outback experience. White, conical domes dot an otherwise featureless landscape in an area that the Aborigines call "hupa piti." Loosely translated to mean "white man in a hole," the phrase has morphed into the name of a singularly unique town, Coober Pedy.
Known as the opal capital of the world, Coober Pedy is first and foremost a mining town. However, the sun during summer months can beat pretty hard so much so that the nearly 4,000 citizens don't dig simply to find opals. It's pleasant underground, so the culturally diverse residents have taken the city down into the earth with them.
Shops, hotels and churches are literally dug into the rose-colored sandstone beneath the Stuart Highway. Striking homes are built a minimum of 4 meters apart to ensure the city maintains its structural integrity. Aside from natural light, these amazing dugouts contain many of the amenities of life on the surface. Added to that, of course, are a dash of the surreal and a touch of the absurd. In Coober Pedy, even the camping is underground!
Although opals still abound in the walls of the underground city, mining within Coober Pedy itself is no longer allowed. Still, many of the old mines and shafts remain and are accessible to the public. Both organized and self-guided tours are available, and the underground accommodations range from hostel-style motels to the sleek Desert Cave Hotel.
If your next locum tenens assignment takes you anywhere near South Australia, consider an outback adventure underground with the precious opals of Coober Pedy. (The town itself is a little over 400 miles south of Alice Springs and nearly 1,000 miles from Melbourne.)