Coober Pedy is ideal if you are looking for a completely different experience in Australia. The most unusual part of the city lies in its underground life. Indeed, more than half the population of Coober Pedy lives underground. Even churches are buried! This is certainly something you would not find in Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne or Sydney. It seems to be the soldiers returning from the trenches of the First World War, who imported this idea. The miners of Coober Pedy then promptly adopted this concept to protect themselves from extreme summer and winter temperatures. Underground, the temperature remains constant at around 24 ° C, regardless of outside temperature. We could not visit Coober Pedy without spending a few nights underground. So we tried the Bedrock hostel. This establishment was founded by Faye Nayler, a legend of Coober Pedy, who was the first to offer underground accommodation to tourists. It is ideally located in the heart of Coober Pedy, adjacent to the Opal Cave showroom. You cannot miss it, it is in the huge parking lot that hosts a memorable Mad Max relic. Small kitchen, shower, this is basic for a backpacker but it is more than enough for this initiation! To extend the experience, do not forget to visit Faye's Historic Underground Home & Mine.

For other unusual activities in Coober Pedy, you can:

• Try the Coober Pedy Opal Fields Golf Course, a course with no lawn, where the greens are black. This is the only one in the world having a reciprocal agreement with the prestigious Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews in Scotland;
• Try your luck at noodling for opals;
• Explore the wonders of nature in the surroundings and have a look at the world's longest fence.

iPhoneography Oz was a guest of Opal Cave.

Coober Pedy is not all about opal mining. Nature also reserves some wonders. Among them, the colourful landscapes of the Breakaways are located thirty kilometers north of the town. Throughout the day, the sun changes the colors of this arid zone. The best time of the day to explore them is probably at sunset. Two lookouts offer the best views of this area which is a surreal paradise for photographers and filmmakers! The town is scattered with left behind props from movies that have been filmed there such as Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Red Planet, Pitch Black and Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. The loop back to Coober Pedy takes you along parts of the Dog Fence through a lunar landscape, otherwise known as the 'moon plain'  is impressive and not to be missed.

In the early twentieth century, a father and his son (Jim and William Hutchison), desperately hurled themselves into the desert of South Australia, over 800 kilometres northwest of Adelaide, in search of gold. After an successful attempt resulting in no gold and no water, they discovered opal and certainly never suspected that nearly 100 years later, the camp they had set up would become a city. Coober Pedy today has became the opal capital of the world. It produces three quarters of the world's opals. A bit like Las Vegas rising like a mirage in the Mojave Desert, it is very surprising to see so much activity in the middle of nowhere. The city is surrounded by a moonscape dotted with mounds of debris from mining activities. Winner of the 2011 South Australia's Best Tourist Attractions award, a visit to Old Timers Mine is a must do! This original opal mine, dug in 1916, has been converted into a museum. Put on a helmet and go underground! This is a great way to travel in time and finding out under what conditions the miners and their families worked and lived underground in the hope of striking it rich. Clearly there is no room for boredom in the desert with all these unusual discoveries (see our photos of William Creek and the Dog Fence).

iPhoneography Oz was a guest of Old Timers Mine.

Here is another unusual eyecatcher in the desert that we just had to photograph after our stop at William Creek. The Dog Fence extends from Surfers Paradise's surroundings in Queensland to the coast of South Australia. Extending for over 5,000 kilometers, it is one of the longest structures in the world and the world's longest fence. It is intended to protect flocks of sheep on the southern side of the fence from being attacked by dingoes, the wild dogs of Australia from the north. For more information, the Wikipedia page dedicated to the fence is quite comprehensive.