- For somebody driving into town the first time,
you wouldn't think there was a lot here
because 95% of it is hiding underground.
People drive in and go, "Where is the place?
"I don't understand."
(didgeridoo music)
Coober Pedy is from the Aboriginal kupa-piti, which means
white man in a hole.
At the moment upstairs it is
about 122 degrees Fahrenheit.
Down here we're sitting on about 71, 72 degrees.
No air conditioner necessary.
We're right out in the middle of nowhere.
It takes a day to drive here from Adelaide.
I'd say there's about 1,000 underground dwellings
and at least 1,500 people living underground.
(whistling)
We've got five underground churches.
We've got underground motels.
There's some amazing underground homes here,
many bedrooms, underground workshop, you name it underground
we've pretty well got it.
I bought my dugout as a fairly small
two bedroom dugout and I've been extending it
over the years.
Some of this I blasted out when I could get away with it.
The cops don't like us blasting in town.
We don't do it anymore.
Back in the old days, if somebody was gonna have a baby,
we'd rock around there with a couple of compressors
on the weekend and some jackhammers, and a couple of cartons
of beer, and by the Sunday night, we'd dug out a room,
cemented the floor, and mired it up,
and, um, there's your new baby's room, honey.
Even though we're so far away geographically
from anywhere else, I don't know why,
but we just love the place to bits.