Coober Pedy is a legendary opal mining town. (Apparently the name is an English corruption of the local Aboriginal term “kupa-piti” meaning “boys’ waterhole”.) Not quite Hobbiton, but the residents famously live in dugouts underground.
I stayed the night in the Lookout Mountain Underground Motel.I immediately thought of the Vaults in Fallout 3 and the Silos in Hugh Howley’s Wool.The walls show the gouge marks of the excavation equipment……a motif seemingly echoed on the toilet paper!Although extremely well-insulated, a ventilation shaft pokes through to the surface which results in a haunting howl of distant wind. On the hill overhead, the ventilation shafts poke out aboveground.