White man in a hole

Dugouts – underground homes

© Bernd Leitner Fotodesign/Shutterstock
Keep off the grass

© Bernd Leitner Fotodesign/Shutterstock
Opal-mining landscape

© Markus Gann/Shutterstock
Opals

© Dmitry Abezgauz/Shutterstock

White man in a hole

Strange though it sounds, in a small town called Coober Pedy in the Australian outback, tourists can put up their tents underground. In fact, half the population lives underground in homes known as dugouts. You’ll even find churches, swimming pools, shops and motels underground. No wonder the Aboriginal name for the place is kupa piti, meaning “white man in a hole”.

So why do you think people live like this? In a place where temperatures can be up to 50°C in summer, living underground makes sense. You don’t need to shelter from the sun or from dust storms, and you don’t have to spend a fortune on air conditioning. Instead, you can go down into your dugout at the end of the working day, and relax in comfortable temperatures all year round. Some people go outdoors at night to play golf when temperatures are more comfortable. There’s no grass on the golf course, only dust, and they have to use balls that glow in the dark.

But why did people start living in Coober Pedy to begin with? The answer is: because of all the opals there. They were first discovered in 1915, and one year later people started to mine for them, hoping to earn a fortune. Opals are precious gems that come in a wide variety of colours, such as blue, brown, green, orange, red, white and yellow. Today Coober Pedy has a population of only 3,500, but it’s the opal capital of the world.

Watch this video to see what life is like in Coober Pedy.

White man in a hole

White man in a hole

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