kimbofo : photos : Coober Pedy, South Australia- powered by SmugMug

Coober Pedy is a small outback mining town in South Australia which bills itself as the "opal capital of the world".

We visited the town for a few days in March 2001.

You can read about the trip here: http://kimbofo.typepad.com/journal/2005/02/travel_tales_pa.html

The photographs here were taken on a 35mm SLR camera.

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kimbofo > The colour of the desert is breathtaking when seen from up high . . . not that I really noticed it, because while Tim was taking this picture, I was barfing into an airsickness bag

kimbofo > Our first glimpse of Coober Pedy from the air. The town is 864km north of Adelaide. The road dissecting this picture is the Stuart Highway, which goes all the way to Darwin, via Alice Springs

kimbofo > Coober Pedy international airport, where the baggage handler is the local bus driver, the check-in person runs a shop in town etc etc. Tim and I had a theory that only seven people lived in Coober Pedy, they just all played multiple roles to ensure the smooth functioning of the community

kimbofo > The opal fields are dotted by hundreds, if not thousands, of excavated earth heaps like these ones

kimbofo > Oweing to the danger of falling down unmanned shafts, there are severe restrictions as to who can access the opal fields. It's basically enter at your own risk

kimbofo > Mining also known as 'noodling' for opals

kimbofo > Coober Pedy, South Australia photo

The colour of the desert is breathtaking when seen from up high . . . not that I really noticed it, because while Tim was taking this picture, I was barfing into an airsickness bag