Clare writes:
In the immortal words of Tom Waits: 'There's a world going on underground!'
There is in Coober Pedy anyway - opal mining capital of Australia, possibly the world. This was one of the places I was most keen to visit since reading about it in bill Bryson's 'Down Under' and it didn't disappoint. Three quarters of the population of this sizeable desert outpost live underground to escape punishing temperatures which range from 1 to 50degrees. In homes, shops, bars, churches cut out of the hills, the temperature hovers at a comfortable 23degrees - we stayed in an underground bunkhouse which was spookily dark as well as much much cooler than outside.
The town has featured in various films (sci fi mostly) and there's still a space ship parked outside from 'Pitch Black'. It's got a frontier town feel too - opal mining hasn't been picked up by big corporations as it relies too much on sheer luck so the mining is done by small groups of hopeful opportunists who sometimes like to blow each other up... also the court house, police station and newspaper offices (for printing the wrong time for Star Trek on the TV pages!).
Anyone can fossick (or 'noodle' for opals in the piles of spoil on the outskirts of town so we did - I even found a little one, but Sheila had a hand-ful before she got out the carpark... but some look a bit suspect to me!!