The best place to check out a working excavation is Tom's, 2km southwest of town: miners continue their search for the big vein; visitors noodle for small fortunes. Self-guided tours run any time between 8am and 5pm and cost $15 per adult, $8 per child. Closed Sundays October to February.
Tom's Working Opal Mine
Outback South Australia
Lonely Planet's must-see attractions
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Check out this amazing leftover prop from the film Pitch Black, which has crash-landed on Hutchison St (a minor Millennium Falcon?). Intricate, creative,…
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This interesting warren of tunnels was mined in 1916, and then hidden by the miners. The mine was rediscovered in 1968 when excavations for a dugout home…
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Kanku-Breakaways Conservation Park
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This is the town's largest and most impressive underground church, with intricate rock-wall carvings and a gorgeous vaulted ceiling. It's about 3km east…
Catholic Church of St Peter & St Paul
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Coober Pedy's first underground church still has a sweet appeal, with statue-filled nooks and hushed classical music.
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Perpetuating small-town Australia's established tradition of building 'big' objects to attract the tourists (banana, crayfish, pineapple etc), Coober Pedy…
2. Coober Pedy's First Cemetery
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Next to Coober Pedy's improbably quaint Greek Orthodox Church, with its wrought-iron bell tower, this dusty plot began when James Conly became the town's…
3. Catholic Church of St Peter & St Paul
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1.29 MILES
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This interesting warren of tunnels was mined in 1916, and then hidden by the miners. The mine was rediscovered in 1968 when excavations for a dugout home…
1.57 MILES
Faye’s was hand dug by three women in the 1960s – an exercise in persistence, to say the least. It's now a time-warp museum and a window into life in…