Spida gets goose bumps in one of Australia’s hottest destinations

Spida gets goose bumps in one of Australia’s hottest destinations

COOBER Pedy lying in the outback of South Australia sits 850 kilometres north of Adelaide. Isolated and remote, it experiences freezing nights in winter and scorching days in summer forcing its residents to live in caves dug out of the hillsides.

Like a hidden city, you will find underground hotels, restaurants, bars, churches and even the world’s only golf course without a blade of grass.

Temperatures soar to between 35 and 45 degrees in the shade in summer sending more than half of its population of 4000 underground where temperatures remain constant.

It’s a unique sight and one that many travellers in Australia should see once in their life.

Coober Pedy’s opal fields were discovered in 1913 and cover an area of 4,954 square kilometres, with the 70 individual fields producing the most opals in the world.

Water supply to the town has always been difficult and expensive and has to be pumped from an underground source 24 kilometres north of the town.

Popular with tourists who try their luck noodling — a process of searching through heaps of discarded mullock for pieces of opal missed by the miners — Coober Pedy is a town like no other.