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Coober Pedy Opal Mining: Australia's Final Frontier
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Coober Pedy opal on sale
We humans are obsessed with shiny, sparkly things, going to phenomenal lengths and expense to get our grubby little hands on gems like gold, rubies, diamonds and emeralds. Wars have been started, lives have been cut short, and enormous fortunes have been won and lost scouring the earth in the hope of finding that unmistakeable glint of buried treasure.
Contents (click to view)
How are Opals Formed?
The History of Opal Mining in Coober Pedy
How to get to Coober Pedy, South Australia
First glimpse of the Australian opal mines
Why are Houses Underground in Coober Pedy?
Where to stay in Coober Pedy
Coober Pedy Flies and Dust
How to Find the Coober Pedy Opal Fields
Film locations in Coober Pedy
Can Anyone Mine Opal In Australia?
How to go Opal Hunting in Coober Pedy
How to Find Opal in Australia
Coober Pedy's Underground Mines
How to go Noodling for Opals in Coober Pedy
How Dangerous Is Opal Mining?
Why Should You Go To Coober Pedy?
Watch our film all about the opal mines in Australia
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These days, the hunt for such jewels is almost entirely monopolised by big industry. You or I can't just wander into a goldfield or a diamond mining area and hope to strike it rich, like some 19th century adventurer. The giant mining companies would you have you arrested and carted off before you'd even scratched the surface. You're far better off staying at home and buying a lottery ticket.
But there is one type of gemstone that still offers hope for the amateur prospector. One small chance left to make your fortune armed with nothing but your bare hands and a truckload of determination.
That gemstone is opal. And the place to find it? The weird and wonderful Coober Pedy, the opal capital of the world, in the heart of Australia's Outback.
Coober Pedy is said to be the opal mining capital of the world
Opal is formed from silica – the same stuff as sand – and when you learn that the entire Coober Pedy area used to be a vast sea bed, it makes sense that this should be an opal hotspot.
As water percolates down through the ground, it picks up silica from sandstone and forms a solution of silicon dioxide. The solution settles into cracks and spaces, and sometimes even into the casts left behind by decomposing sea creatures. The water then evaporates, leaving the silica behind, which over millions of years becomes an opal.
About 90% of all opal is a dull white colour – this stuff is known as 'common opal' or 'potch' and has no value. This is when the silica crystals are arranged randomly and light is not refracted.
Coloured opal, the valuable stuff, occurs when the silica crystals are evenly sized and lined-up, allowing light to bounce off them and create a rainbow of colours: red, green, blue, violet, yellow or orange.
Coober Pedy opals
The name Coober Pedy (sometimes misspelled 'Cooper Pedy') comes from the Aboriginal words Kupa Piti – said to mean "white man in a hole". And when you see the opal fields you'll understand why.
White men have been digging holes here since 1915, when a 14-year-old boy named Willie, who was working for a team of gold-prospectors at the time, wandered off and found opals. Since then people have come to Australia from all over the world to try their luck and the opal mining boom took off.
But it's been a tale of highs and lows. In the 1930s and 40s the Great Depression almost led to Coober Pedy's total collapse, and the town was only saved in 1947 when an Aboriginal woman made a record-breaking find which made headlines and sparked a new 'opal rush'.
During the 1960s, the arrival of European immigrants seeking their fortunes caused the mining industry to expand into a multi-million dollar industry and Coober Pedy gradually became a modern mining town. Today, more than 90% of the world's precious opals are found in Australia and Coober Pedy is known as the opal mining capital of the world.
But unlike with gold and diamonds, there is no scientific way to search for opals: finding them is entirely pot luck; hit and (usually) miss. So big corporations don't bother: it's not worth the investment. Which means that any Tom, Dick or Harriet can simply turn up and give it a go.
Coober Pedy is the home of opal mining in Australia
I was lucky enough to visit Coober Pedy while working as a producer on a BBC science series called The Treasure Hunters. The episode I worked on looked at how a variety of natural treasures are formed, and the lengths to which people go to get them out of the ground.
And there are few treasures more elusive, and few places more personally challenging, than the remote and inhospitable landscape of the Australian Outback.
Coober Pedy is in South Australia about 520 miles north of Adelaide and 420 miles south of Alice Springs – it's one of the most isolated cities in the world. We flew on a small plane from Adelaide (you can also travel by road and rail, but the drive will take you at least 8 hours, plus breaks, along long and lonely roads). It's quite a mission to get to, but definitely worth adding to your Australia Bucket List.
As the plane made its approach, we could see the weird landscape stretching out below us, pockmarked with holes and spoil heaps like some sort of post-apocalyptic wasteland. These are the Coober Pedy opal fields, and it's here that brave and possibly foolish men (and some women, though it's mostly men) come to find their fortunes.
You can look for flights to Coober Pedy here.
Coober Pedy opal fields from the air
Coober Pedy is hardly a buzzing metropolis, as you can probably tell from the airport terminal building. The town has a population of just a few thousand, and almost everyone is there either to dig for opals, or to supply services to the mining community.
Coober Pedy airport
Once you've been given your bag back (there's no luggage carousel here), you'll need a place to stay, and at first you might wonder where all the hotels are. Until you realise that the reason why you can't see them is because many of the them are underground.
With its desert climate Coober Pedy is so inhospitable – sometimes reaching a scorching 45° C (113° F) in the shade – that residents decided the best way to cope was to build their homes beneath the surface, where the sandstone keeps the temperature at a much more amenable 24° (75° F) all year round.
A few phenomenally lucky ones even hit seams of opal while they were digging rooms out – which sounds like a pretty awesome way to pay for the building work and probably even afford a nice new sofa while you're about it.
Not all the houses and hotels are underground, so if you'd prefer to stay up top you can, but staying in an underground hotel really brings the Coober Pedy adventure to life!
Click here to search for hotels in Coober Pedy.
We stayed in the Comfort Inn Coober Pedy experience, a former opal mine now turned into a hotel, with underground rooms with big comfy beds and ensuite bathrooms. I did find it a bit claustrophobic staying in a room with no windows – and there's something about being underground that changes the feel and the air quality of a room – but it was very atmospheric and definitely added to the experience.
Signs point the way to the Coober Pedy underground hotels
So yes, depending on when you visit it can be hot hot hot in Coober Pedy. And that heat brings on two other unwelcome guests: dust, and flies.
We discovered the flies as soon as we arrived. The little buggers are everywhere, and they just won't leave you alone. Buzzing round your face, settling on every available surface, making a beeline (a fly-line?) for moist areas like your eyes, nose and lips.
The famous Coober Pedy flies
We were told they're not always THIS bad; we'd just come at a particularly buzzy time, but even so, you'd better be prepared. We had to rush out pretty damn quick and buy fly nets like these ones to keep them off our faces – I ended up looking a bit some sort of edgy Australian Outback bride!
Wearing a fly net to keep the Coober Pedy flies at bay!
But don't even think of getting married here – at least, not in a big white dress. Because of the heat, Coober Pedy is also incredibly dry and dusty, and all your clothes will end up orange pretty much the second you step outdoors.
The famous orange dust of the Outback
The main opal fields are situated just a short drive out of town. If you're a serious opal-hunter, you'll need to invest in a 4WD vehicle – but if you're there as a tourist (which, admittedly, is probably what you'll be), you can book an opal fields tour or try to persuade a friendly local miner to take you on a drive.
Once you're outside the built-up area of the town, you really start to appreciate the weird beauty of Coober Pedy. It's like a lunar landscape, pockmarked all over with holes from which you half expect some kind of giant burrowing animal or alien creature to pop up.
Coober Pedy opal fields
In fact, so weird is the opal fields' landscape that many Hollywood filmmakers have used them as a movie set. Vin Diesel was a marooned space traveller here in Pitch Black, Guy Pearce took a trip through the area in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, and a space ship left over from Mad Max, Beyond Thunderdome, lies abandoned in Coober Pedy town centre.
Spacecraft from the Mad Max film
This bit of movie memorabilia is not the only abandoned piece of equipment lying around. Sometimes, the heat and the dust storms get the better of the hard-worked vehicles; others lie discarded in the opal fields after their owners bankrupted themselves and went back to where they came from, leaving their hopes, dreams, and earth-moving machinery in the dust behind them.
It makes for a very eerie and strangely beautiful landscape.
Rusted abandoned vehicles litter the Coober Pedy opal fields
Of course there's a reason why people come here to brave the heat and the flies and the dust: the chance to strike it rich with a huge opal find. And it could happen: some seams are no more than eight inches below ground, and if you're insanely lucky you might even find a stone just lying on the surface.
There have been some spectacular discoveries – one worth over a million dollars – but plenty of locals still believe there are more rich pickings to be had.
Tourists are allowed to visit the mines, but if you're serious about properly trying your hand at opal mining, you need to be over 16 and have the following:
Australian citizenship or a work visa.
A permit costing just AUS $74 and identification plates costing AUS $8.90.
A wooden stake.
Once you've got your visa, your permit, and your stake, what you then need to do is pick a likely-looking bit that isn't currently claimed by anyone else, hammer your stake into the ground, and get stuck in. That's it!
Of course, in reality it's not a simple as that. You'll need plans, and equipment, and engineering knowhow, and a hefty dose of grit and determination. But if you're serious about applying for a permit and staking a claim to mine opals in Coober Pedy, there's loads more information via the South Australian Government website.
And now carry on reading to find out how the experts do it…
Miner Dale stands at the corner of his claim
Once you've staked your opal mining claim, you need to start digging. The easiest way to do this is with a giant drilling machine like this one.
Opal hunting kit – the drilling machine
When you see one of these, suddenly all the little holes and piles of dirt make sense. For over a hundred years, miners have been doing just this – digging holes, checking to see if they've hit a seam of opal, and when they find they haven't, moving on to the next spot.
The holes remain unfilled with the spoil heaps next to them, and over the years ten holes became a hundred, and then a thousand – a memorial to the failed attempts and crushed dreams of the miners who've been and gone.
Opal miner Justin in Coober Pedy
Not every attempt is a failure though. This is Australian opal miner Justin. He used to work for large-scale mining companies until he decided to quit and become his own boss. He didn't like to talk about how much money he's made from opals, but he reckoned that over the years it's definitely been in the multimillions of dollars.
That doesn't mean he's a multimillionaire now though – running equipment like this is an expensive business, and many Coober Pedy opal miners who hit pay dirt soon blow all their profits in the quest for the next big find.
Drilling for opals
Justin and his partner use their giant drill to dig a one-meter-diameter hole in the dirt. He told me that the chances of hitting opal straight off are extremely rare – usually he has to drill the hole and then tunnel along horizontally under the ground until he finds something. If he hits opal on the first go it usually means he's landed on a big pocket of the stuff, and he's in for an exceedingly good year.
Inside one of the Australian opal mines
With the hole drilled, the next step is to inspect the walls of the shaft for signs of opal. This involves one person being winched down to take a look. It's hot, dusty, and very claustrophobic, but I can only imagine the excitement you might feel if you saw that telltale flash of colour winking back at you from the side of your freshly-drilled rabbit-hole.
An opal miner about to descend into the mine shaft
As Justin points out, you'd have to be insanely lucky to hit a patch of opal on your first attempt. Far more likely is that you'll need to start tunnelling sideways under the ground, hoping to hit a seam before you come to the edge of your claim and crash into someone else's tunnel.
But with opal so hard to find, and miners so determined, it doesn't take all that long before what started out as a single shaft soon develops into a rabbit-warren of tunnels and chambers.
Inside a Coober Pedy opal mine in Australia
This is Bob, who allowed us to film inside his mine. Bob's an Australian engineer who's been in Coober Pedy for nearly 50 years; he came to the town on his way to the Northern Territory but liked the place so much he decided to stay. He loves the freedom of being his own boss, and the excitement of never knowing what might happen from one day to the next.
Bob the opal miner
Bob takes a different approach from many other miners in his quest for opals – rather than drilling holes and then tunnelling sideways, he finds cliff edges and cuttings in the rock and digs in from the side. This allows him to get bigger machinery inside and gives a much more spacious underground experience.
One of the many opal mines in Australia
Even so, I did find the opal mine a little nerve-wracking – hoping that Bob had done his calculations correctly and that the walls and ceilings of the tunnels were structurally sound. It wouldn't be all much fun to get trapped down there that's for sure – and it has been known to happen. So it was a relief when we finished filming and were able to emerge into the fresh air again. I was even happy to see those flies!
Visiting an opal mine is one of the things to do in Coober Pedy
Of course, if you don't have the time, money, or energy to dig your own mine, there is another alternative. It's called noodling or fossicking for opals, and it involves going through the spoil heaps left behind by other miners to see if they've missed anything.
Many of the large-scale miners focus solely on the big deposits, and don't waste time on the odd gem or two here and there. For those that can be bothered, there's good money to be made simply picking up what the big guys have left behind.
Noodling for opals in Coober Pedy
This is what miner Dale does. He puts his stake into abandoned claims where he knows there's been a strike, and looks for what was missed. He's even developed his own machinery which noodles for opals by sifting out the sand and scanning the rest under UV light to pick up the gems, which glow white in the dark. With a trained eye and a quick hand he can pick up $2000 worth of opals a day this way.
Noodling or fossicking for opals in Coober Pedy
As a tourist, this is something you can even try for yourself. A couple of the working mines are open to the public, and they'll let you noodle for opals in their spoil heaps and keep anything you find. Though I wouldn't hold out all that much hope – I'm pretty sure they'll have given them a good going over before they let anyone else loose on them. But you never know, you might get lucky!
As you might have already gathered, with the potential for great reward comes great risk. Mine collapses can happen, and there's also a risk of lung or eye damage from all that dust.
Even if you never enter a mine, if you venture out to the opal fields you run the very real risk of falling down one of the hundreds of abandoned shafts that are dotted about here, there and everywhere. For this reason there is even a dedicated Mine Rescue Team in Coober Pedy, whose job it is to respond quickly in the event of an accident.
We were repeatedly reminded to be hyper-vigilant about where we were walking, and never to step backwards without looking behind us first.
In the era of the selfie, I can imagine the number of accidents is only going to increase so please, please be careful.
Coober Pedy town sign
In all seriousness, it's highly unlikely anyone reading this is really going to become a miner in Coober Pedy. But that absolutely does not mean you shouldn't go. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Coober Pedy is one of the most starkly beautiful, weird, and fascinating places I've ever had the fortune to visit, and definitely somewhere that'll stand out in your memory when all those Italian churches or Ugandan National Parks have merged into one.
For more information and advice on how to plan your trip, visit the town's tourist site.
The Coober Pedy opal mines Australia
If you'd like to see the film we made, it's here, courtesy of our lovely cameraman Julius.
To read more about what we got up to on this amazing filming trip, why not read How to Grow a Pearl – Inside an Australian Pearl Farm
Or if you'd like more behind-the-scenes TV production stuff from other places, why not try one of my Unhelpful Guides?
Have you been to Coober Pedy or tried your hand at noodling for opals? I'd love to know how you got on in the comments!
Digging for Opal in Coober Pedy, Australia
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