As with many issues, humans can thrive in many types of environments. Perhaps this will save us with global climate change.
Tamara Merino must have been seriously lost. Coober Pedy is nowhere near the Simpson Desert. It's on the main road to Alice Springs and Darwin.
A feature of the underground homes is the sudden drop in temperature between the front door and a few paces inside. It's very noticeable. The walls of the homes are coated with a kind of clear plastic paint that seals in the dust and shows off the colorful rock walls. Some owners add all sorts of extra rooms. They are really after opal, which occurs quite unpredictably.
If you stay in the hotel, you must be sure to make a mental note of where the light switch is. When you wake in the morning it will be just as dark as when you went to bed! Hotel staff told me that some guests can't take the confinement and ask to be moved to the above ground section.
Coober Pedy is something really different and it's quite easy to get to by road or air.
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@ChairmanDave Thank you. You actually gave more information about these underground homes than the author did.
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Super photography and a great story! Thanks.
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With climate change and increasingly hot summers, I’m tempted to dig myself a cave. It would pay for itself with reduced utility costs.
Most of these dwellings started as mines that were then enlarged.
Need another bedroom? Just start digging.
They have vents that provide a flow of air, and a constant temperature of around 18 C.
But the place is changing with the advent of capital-intensive open cut mining.
Oh man, those stars...
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Great article and beautiful photos! We visited Coober Pedy in July (the cool season!) and had a great time. Stayed in an excellent underground bed and breakfast dugout (all mod cons). It also has a killer Chinese restaurant and an excellent French bakery finding both of which really amazed us. (Check out the reviews - including mine - on Tripadviser. - Oh, and its only two days drive from Adelaide so think about a visit! :-) )
Caves were the default human habitation for hundreds of thousands of years, at least in the northern hemisphere, so early man must have become well adapted to this environment. Maybe cities and skyscrapers are the aberration. Strip malls seldom occur in nature.
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Outrageously great photography! Ms. Merino - wonderful work, and your time spent in post production is masterful. Hoping to find more of what your eye sees here soon!
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Better building practices could go a long way in decreasing the massive amount of pollution caused by electrical generation for A/C. This sort of living would be ideal in the SW US and the Muslim world. I remember the heat in Iraq as hellish and violence would peak the hotter it got.
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So interesting! Humans are amazing adapters, which is a good thing - I get the feeling a lot more of us will be living this way about 100 years from now!
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I visited Australia almost 20 years ago and bought a gorgeous opal in Adelaide that came from Coober Pedy.
At the time I was told that the name Coober Pedy was aboriginal and meant “white man in a hole” — referring to the opal miners.
When I commented that the opal selection was so colorful compared to milky stones available in the US, offhandedly the sales person said “We only export the crummy stones.” This still makes me laugh.
I don’t know if either of these factoids are true but they made for memorable experience. Plus, I always receive compliments on the opal pendant that I wear everyday.
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@MGU“We only export the crummy stones" is certainly true for Australian wine... Before we moved here to South Australia from the UK, we'd tried drinking Australian wine but not really liked it. Now we're here in Adelaide and have the benefit of a number of excellent wine areas (e.g. Barossa Valley, Maclaren Vale, Adelaide Hills, Clare Valley) within a short drive, we've found that 'We really do only export the crummy wine!' :-)
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@MGU I prefer the milky opals myself.
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Subterranean Homesick Blues?
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Fascinating glimpse into a different world. So interesting, beautiful images. I notice some items in the homes are covered, presumably dust is something of a problem.
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We visited there last month and found Coober Pedy to be more attractive than this article would suggest - it has a variety of accommodation and dining options for tourists and pretty good services for residents - felt a bit like remote places we have seen in Nevada. Can I urge readers to visit Central Australia for these very different experiences. Driving to Yulara area (formerly Ayers Rock) was a revelation, especially seeing the advances made by Aboriginal Corporations investing in all kinds of facilities.
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This is top-notch story telling, with a seamless meld of images and text. What a remarkable project to take on and pull off so well! I am envious.
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Now Playing: Underground - Tom Waits
They're alive, they're awake
while the rest of the world is asleep
below the mine shaft roads
it will all unfold
There's a world going on underground
All the roots hang down
swing from town to town
they are marching around
down under your boots
all the trucks unload
beyond the gopher holes
There's a world going on underground*
*Underground
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Outstanding! Beautiful gritty images, exquiste light and colors, a kind of lost world revealed. Could not be improved upon.
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This was a brilliant article and I will be sharing it with my kids over breakfast. So interesting.
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no light, or fresh air. must be claustrophobic.
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@Ivehadit
No. Not really. Most of these places in Coober pedy are brilliantly lit. It’s just they seem to have selected the darker pictures for this article. Google it and you’ll see.
@Ivehadit They seem to have both, via "portholes" to the surface, according to some of the photos,
Weird but practical
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A fascinating photo essay about people living in an extreme environment, something I'm interested in. Great work.
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