Thursday, July 29, 2010

Landscapes and underground interiors

These Opal mines in Cooberpedy are everywhere. Mounds of earth scattered everywhere, which give the landscape a real pyramid Egypt feel. It is very easy to get a claim to start digging for Opal which costs around $70 which is why there is so many. While, travelling around and talking to the people it was not hard to get captivated by the thought of striking it rich just from digging through a bit of dirt. We went to a fantastic Old Timers Mine Tour and heard stories where people found a $100,000 piece of opal on the side of the road, in the carpark and from their first dig. Lots of people come out here as a tourist and get opal fever and stay. Tantalizing! However I would not last it is way to hot out here. Their is a great story to read if you click on the Old Timers Mine tour link above.

Everything looks salvaged and DIY in Cooberpedy. This kind of residential landscape is very common.

This is Faye's House. A underground dug out house. Alot of residential houses are built underground because of the extreme heat in summer. I find them absolutely genius really. Faye's is a open house and you can wander around and check out how it is all constructed, which is usually made out of old mines that are re-constructed to be lived in. Faye's house has 7 underground rooms. The caretaker said their is a house in Cooberpedy that has 22 rooms. Wouldn't you just love to see that!

Kitchen looking into the lounge room
Bedroom 1 with a lower level Bedroom 2

From the bedroom you go down a hall way past the cellar
into the lounge/living room. Don't you  just love the retro interior
then from the lounge room their is a pool room. This room is my favourite. Way too cool. I just love the decor. It could have come straight out of a 70's Magazine.
the other end of the pool room
This landscape is called the Breakaway's about a 30km's from Cooberpedy. Definitely worth the drive. The landscape is just stunning! Click on the image to get the whole view.



all photography by Candice Herne

4 comments:

Sophie Munns said...

Excellent post from an uttlery fascinating art of this country...loved Coober Pedy what I saw of it years ago.
Fab landscapes too!
S xox

Nicola Moss said...

Amazing landscape.
Thanks Candice.

The Words Crafter said...

The mine story reminds me of gold fever in US history....I've watched shows on tv that talk about the underground houses. It was awesome to get to 'go' inside of one. How great was that place!?!!! I could live there! Thanks for showing us around :)

Candice Herne said...

Hi Sophie, Nicola and WC thanks for all your comments. Since being out in the bush all last week, I had a chance to catch up on organising my images for my blog. Hence the numerous posts.I still haven't caught up yet. WC you crack me up 'gifted vision'I laughed way to loud, out loud, that's truely lovely of you. Well I'm in good company then.Aren't we all gifted! Sophie I would love for you to do a post on my blog, cool!i better go now and work on organising more images for posts. thanks and take care Candyxx