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| AUSTRALIA The local bank manager stores explosives in his kitchen pantry. A French expatriate called Oui Oui (Wee Wee) allows her 2 pet lizards to lounge at a popular bar. At least half the residents live in underground "dugouts," and at any given moment men and women can be seen "noodling" in public. Such is life in the tiny opal mining town of Coober Pedy, Australia, where eccentricity is as normal as a 112-degree day. "Noodling," I should point out, is outback slang for "fossicking" – a.k.a. the search for gems among excavated opal mines. With an estimated 250,000 mine shafts in and around Coober Pedy, there are plenty of opportunities to noodle. And plenty of opportunities for careless tourists to fall into a shaft. (Warning signs, depicting a stick figure plummeting headfirst into oblivion, are posted everywhere.) Opals were first discovered here in 1915 by Willie Hutchison, a 14-year-old boy who traveled from Marree by camel with his father to prospect for gold. Today, Coober Pedy is the world's largest producer of opals. Most of the 3,000 residents are wannabe millionaires who have lost more money than they've made. Among the international cast of prospectors you'll find Australian aborigines, Greeks, Italians, Lebanese, Chinese, Indian, Irish – in all, some 50 ethnicities are represented here. Although the aboriginal translation of Coober Pedy is "white man's hole in the ground," over the years it seems to have become the world's most ethnically diverse hole in the ground.
Coober Pedy's end-of-the-world appearance has not been lost on Hollywood movie makers. Much of "Mad Max III: Beyond Thunderdome" was filmed here, as was "Red Planet," starring Val Kilmer and "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert."
Together with her Greek-Australian boyfriend Tony Karetsian, Yveline now owns Radeka's Downunder Motel, a popular youth hostel that served as my home away from home for a week. Built underground to protect occupants from the extreme heat, Radeka's, like most "dugout" structures in town, was carved from the earth with hand picks and tunneling machines. Within the perfectly cut rooms, we had running water, electricity, an Internet café and all the creature comforts.
One night, while sipping another Victoria Bitter at Radeka's bar, I got a good sense of what it's like to be a local. A cricket match played out on the TV behind the bar. Tony smoked cigarettes and coughed phlegmatically while watching. Yveline fed watermelons to her 2 pet lizards. Ashley Wood, the soft-spoken local Wespac Bank manager, leaned toward me from the next bar stool. "On one shelf in my kitchen pantry," he said matter-of-factly, "there's a box of cereal, a bag of rice, and a few sticks of gelignite." Similar to dynamite, gelignite is made of gelled nitroglycerine and potassium nitrate. The powerful explosive is readily available for purchase at stores around town. "Everybody has a few sticks laying around," he said.
My startled reaction must have intrigued him. "You want we blow something up!" "Ahhhh!. well, I–". "Tomorrow, we go mining," he said. "I show you." The next day George and Tony took me to the mining claim they share. We drove along a bumpy dirt road to a group of dusty hills 15 minutes outside of town. At the base of one of the hills I saw a rectangular doorway that had been perfectly cut by a tunneling machine. The truck stopped here. We unloaded equipment (extension cords, lamps, flashlights and a huge hand-held drill) and walked single file toward the opening.
Crazed kangaroos notwithstanding, we entered the mine. George and Tony took turns drilling into the sandstone walls, looking for colored glints of opal that could change their lives forever. After a couple of hours of fruitless drilling, they gave up. Frustrated, George made a Nitropril bomb and planted it atop a nearby hill. Together, we watched it explode. click here for more images of Australia Next stop: Alice Springs, Australia. |
