Coober Pedy, South Australia, is a strange little town.
Everyone who visits for the first time will be surprised to find that on the endless gravel, apart from parking lots and gas stations, there are not many residences, and it does not look like an inhabited town at all.
In fact, there are not only more than 3,000 people living here, but also everything from hotels to bars, churches to nightclubs. The reason why they are invisible is that most of them are built in underground mines.
These mines have witnessed a century-old history of human opal mining, and also contain the largest reserves of gem-quality opal (opal) in the world. Therefore, Coober Pedy is also known as the "Opal Capital of the World" ".
Cooperpetit is the only underground city in Australia. It is located in the hinterland of the Victoria Desert. The climate is extremely hot and arid. It was originally a barren land where no bird would want to land.
But 100 years ago, someone discovered opal mines here, which changed the fate of this desert.
In 1915, explorer Will Hutcheson and three companions traveled through the arid outback of South Australia in search of gold, but found nothing along the way.
It wasn't until they came to the sandstone area about 850 kilometers north of Adelaide that they made an astonishing discovery in this desolate desert.
Here are some rocks with iridescent light emitting from the cracks, and when the outer layer of the rock is cracked, some opals are revealed.
These opals form a flame-like phenomenon under the diffraction of light, which is called play-of-color. This is an important feature of gem-quality opals and is also its important charm.
Because it concentrates all the colors and color-changing luster in the natural spectrum, it is praised by the jewelry industry as the "palette" of gemstones. It is said that no two gemstones with the same color can be found in the world. grade opal.
Gem-quality opal is generally called opal stone. Due to its brilliant color, it has always been regarded as a treasure by humans and has different names and meanings around the world.
In ancient my country, it was called Li Zhu, Wucai Stone, and Shui Shui Stone. Now, people in Shanghai call it Yuehua Stone, and people in Guangdong call it Shanshan Cloud.
The ancient Romans called it "Cupid's Stone" to symbolize pure love. The Greeks believed it could predict the future, and the Arabs believed it could sense heaven...
Opal also It is deeply loved by Western nobles. You can see it from the "Burning Troy" given by Napoleon to Queen Josephine, to the jewelry given by Queen Victoria to her five daughters, and to the "Queen's Opal" exclusive to Queen Elizabeth. its figure.
Opal is not only precious, but also extremely rare. Before the discovery of minerals in Australia, the only major source of opal in the world was Slovakia, where most of the opal was ordinary opal, and the content of opal was extremely low.
On the other hand, the opal deposits discovered by Hutcheson in South Australia are the best among opals, and their scale is astonishing, far exceeding the reserves of Slovak mines.
The news spread like wildfire, and countless Taobao people came here, ready to make a fortune here, because for them, digging holes to find treasures is easy.
But after they arrived, they discovered that opals are different from treasures. They cannot be dug out in three or five days. Instead, they have to be dug out from the ground bit by bit, and a protracted battle is required.
So many people plan to settle here, but the temperature here during the day is as high as 50 degrees, and the temperature at night will plummet to freezing point, which is prohibitive.
How to adapt to this extreme weather is the primary problem that needs to be solved before mining operations can be operated on a large scale.
Fortunately, among the Taobao people there were soldiers who had returned from World War I. They had experience living in air raid shelters, so they tried to live in mines to escape the extremely hot weather.
This is a good idea, because the area is dry and rainless, and the soil is solid. The mine will not be flooded or collapse easily, and you will not get arthritis if you live in it.
The most important thing is that no matter how the surface temperature changes, the mine always maintains a comfortable temperature range of 20°C.
Although living in a mine in the early days had many shortcomings such as poor ventilation and a lot of dust, in those days without air conditioning, such conditions were pretty good.
In this way, this unique underground city was born. In the following more than a hundred years, as the population continued to grow, there were more and more underground residences and the conditions became more and more perfect.
Their private residences are generally located 10 to 22 meters underground, with living rooms, kitchens, bedrooms and bathrooms. Some luxury homes are even close to 500 square meters in area.
In order to solve the problem of sandstone easily losing dust, the walls of houses are often painted thickly to prevent the gravel from falling off the walls, and furniture is sometimes covered with plastic films.
The room maintains a constant temperature of 22°C all year round, just like the central air conditioner is never turned off. It feels very comfortable, and there is no need to pay a penny for electricity.
In order to keep the air fresh, clean air is introduced through a large number of ground ventilation shafts and convection circulation is formed inside. Not only will you not feel stuffy, but you will feel comfortable breathing.
The town's drinking water system is connected to the Great Artesian Basin, Australia's largest source of fresh water, while electricity is self-sufficient through solar panels and wind turbines.
Today, the town’s renewable energy usage ratio is as high as 70%, and it accidentally set a world record of using 100 renewable energy sources for uninterrupted power supply for 81 hours.
Since the house is surrounded by solid rocks and the walls are at least 3 meters thick, the sound insulation effect is very good. The room is extremely quiet and no annoying noise can be heard at all...
This is undoubtedly very attractive to friends who like quietness. If you have the opportunity, you must experience the peaceful feeling of "isolation".
Of course, there are disadvantages to being so quiet. For example, snoring at night will produce earth-shattering echoes. Another example is that some tourists come here for vacation and dare not turn off the TV at night because it is so quiet that it is scary.
The living facilities in Coober Pedy are also relatively complete.
During the day, people can spend money in underground bars, restaurants, swimming pools, churches and shops. At night, they can go to the ground courses to play light golf, or go to the desert drive-in theater to watch a movie.
Since sci-fi blockbusters such as "Star Wars" and "Mad Max" have been filmed here, the large props used in the movies have been preserved as unique installation art in the center of the town.
Although Coober Pedy has good living conditions, people come here ultimately to hunt for treasure, so it is necessary to examine the value of settling here from an investment perspective.
First of all, the cost of buying a house is relatively cheap. You only need to pay about 150,000 yuan, hire an excavator to work for a few days, and you can get a three-bedroom underground house. If you buy a "second-hand house", The price will be cheaper.
If you feel that the place you live in is not big enough, or you have a new addition to your family, you can also expand your house yourself to make it as big as you want.
Local people told two things that showed how easy it was for them to expand their houses.
First, every child has encountered this situation: one day after finishing homework at home, my father handed me a shovel and said to me: "Let's dig a new bedroom." ".
Second, when a man gives birth to a baby, he will work with a jackhammer for several days to dig a separate bedroom for the new baby.
You can imagine that although this underground town is as calm as water above ground, it is actually very busy below. Everyone is digging at home, not only to expand the living area, but more importantly, to find opals. ...
Seeing this, many people will think that this is a movie. If a regular mining farm is not used, why do you want to dig for treasure at home? This is because of a strange local regulation.
"If you find an opal in a mining site, you are taxed as income. If you find an opal while digging a room, it is a windfall and is tax-free."
Since after 100 After years of mining, local mineral resources have become less and less, and mining costs have increased day by day, so people are more willing to use this policy to mine at home.
Therefore, in the small town of Coober Pedy, you can often hear the good news that someone has dug up opals at home.
For example, a man dug a bedroom for his mother-in-law, and found an opal that was more valuable than his own home. From then on, he often asked his wife, "Are you sure we don't want a new room?"
For another example, a family dug a new room before sending their son to college. Why did they dig a new room when the population was obviously declining? Because they planned to dig opals to raise money for their son’s tuition.
There are countless such examples. For example, there was a local hotel owner who discovered opals with a total value of 6.8 million yuan when he was expanding his room. He said that this expansion project was very meaningful.
What is the concept of opal worth 6.8 million? Take a look at this opal mined from the "Eight Mile" mine in Coober Pedy. It weighs 3.4 kilograms (17,000 carats) and is worth $11.4 million, equivalent to $670 per carat.
Although the total price of this opal is high because of its heavy weight, the unit price is actually not high. Many more valuable varieties have been unearthed locally.
Opal is divided into five categories according to different body colors: black, white, iron, fire, and crystalline opal. The following are different types of opal stones collected in the Museum of Natural History in New York, USA.
Among them, black opal is the most valuable. It has the smallest reserves and the highest value among all types. Compared with other types, black opal is more favored by Orientals.
Because Black Opal has a darker base color (black or dark), it can make the play of colors more dazzling. In addition, the overall darker body color has a sense of tranquility, which can easily make people feel Relax.
Nowadays, opal mines are dwindling and prices are gradually rising. The price of black opal is even higher. For example, this black opal "Australian Aurora" is sold for more than 36,000 yuan per carat.
The minerals in Coober Pedy will one day be completely exhausted, but the story of mankind relying on wisdom and hard work to open up new world in the desert will be passed down forever.