Coober Pedy

Means White Man in a hole in Aboriginal.
Not sure if its true but sounds like a good yarn. so will go with that.

Town

And they must have looked strange to them I suppose, looking for shiny stones in the ground!

The town has an untidy look abut it, as none of the holes are allowed to be filled in.
Makes sense I suppose if you dug under a filled in hole it would cave in on you.

The opal is part of an old sea bed, and precipitates at between 70 and 90 feet in a seam.

There is no way of detecting or geologically evaluating a site, you just have to dig to that level. find the seam, and have a look.
So you can be very lucky, or not so lucky.

Dugout

Our tour guide was in his 70s, (retired from mining), had come to Coober Pedy in the 1960s not intending to stay.
But enjoyed the place and has made a pretty good living. and reckons its the best place on earth.

The summers here are hot up to 47 degrees C, however temperature in the dugouts are 26 to 28 degrees all year around so its the preferred residence if you can afford one.

Serbian Church

Sebian Underground Church,
pretty spectacular

Amanda looking at an Opal? underground.

About 15 ks away north west of Cobber Pedy is an area called the breakaways.

No opal out here just an interesting colorful landscape that is worth driving out to.