UNDERGROUND HOMES

Coober Pedy is a town in South Australia. The population of Coober Pedy is not much. Fewer than 2,000 people live there. Coober Pedy is a small town, but it is really famous. Many people know about Coober Pedy because most of the world’s opals come from this town. An opal is a kind of blue stone which is very beautiful and costs a lot of money. People work long hours to dig into the ground to get opals because they are not easy to find.

Coober Pedy is famous for a second, and a more special reason: more than half of the people there live in underground homes called ‘dugouts’! The first question people ask about Coober Pedy is, “Why do the people in Coober Pedy live underground?” The answer is Coober Pedy is located in a desert. It is more than 40 degrees Celsius in summer! People want to live underground because it is cool under the ground. Then, they don’t need to use air conditioners. There are also five underground churches, some underground hotels and a few underground stores.

There is another good reason to live underground: it is very easy to make your home bigger. When you want more space to live, you can just dig a new room! However, Larry Stansfield lives in Coober Pedy and he says there is a problem. He says when visitors first come to his town, they don’t see any houses. Because of that, they get confused. They say, “Where is the town? I don’t get it!”