Built on Opal: Coober Pedy, South Australia
Living and working underground in Australia’s Outback
Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome was filmed in Outback South Australia. So was the Vin Diesel movie Pitch Black. Thomas Engelman, producer of Pitch Black, selected Coober Pedy for the three-sun desert planet because its landscape ‘looked more desolate and dangerous than Mars’.
In South Australia, the Outback starts close to the cities. Past Port Augusta, the houses, factories, and service stations shrink in the rear view mirror. The Stuart Highway cuts north across red dirt dotted with mulga, past gibber plains and salt lakes glittering in the sun. Flocks of green budgerigars swirl across a wide blue sky. Goannas stride across the warm asphalt, unhurried and uncaring.
The Stuart Highway offers few diversions. At Pimba, the Olympic Dam Highway branches off to Woomera village, Roxby Downs, and the opal fields of Andamooka. It is sealed all the way to Andamooka, but after that the roads are dusty, rugged, and empty.
Coober Pedy is the largest town in Outback South Australia. Approaching from the south, the first indications you are nearing the place are billboards spruiking cheap…
