Bedrooms Underground
Google Street View doesn’t exactly work in the South Australian mining town of Coober Pedy. Why? The clue’s in the name; Aboriginal for ‘white man in a hole’, Coober Pedy is, for the most part, under the ground.
The first ‘dugouts’ at Coober Pedy were created in the 1920s and thought to have been initiated by soldiers returning from the trenches of the First World War. These shelters beneath the earth would be quite a contrast to what the soldiers had endured in France, however. Where there were rats and fleas and perpetual mud in France, there were geckos and kangaroos and blistering sand as far as the eye could see in Coober Pedy.
With its moon-like landscape, cloudless skies and temperatures of up to 40 degrees (as well as freezing desert nights), Coober Pedy exhibits an undeniably harsh environment. Under the ground, away from the scalding sun, however, temperatures never waver from a balmy 19-25 degrees. Cool enough in summer, warm enough in winter.
Although famed for their opal mining (together with two neighbouring mines they supply 85% of the world’s opals), it is now also Coober Pedy’s underground facilities that are drawing the tourists. With streets, shops, restaurants, churches, hotels and even several mansions underground, a stay in Coober Pedy would inevitably be a unique one - whether you like subterranean spaces or not!
All of this makes for interesting homes and of course, interesting bedrooms. How must it feel to arise from bed and retire to bed in the unfaltering light of lamps, rather than the rising and setting of the sun? Some bedrooms in Coober Pedy have artificial windows and many have fans so an outside breeze can be emulated. I feel S.A.D. lamps may be quite popular there.
Decorating underground bedrooms is a bit tricky also. With exposed and rugged rock encasing the rooms, painting is difficult, wallpaper out of the question. With all dugout walls looking alike in their terracotta hues, it is down to the furniture and accessories to leave a unique mark on the space.
In the first photo, taken in a resident’s home built in the 1960s, we can, in fact, see pale pink painted walls. This provides a delicate background to floral accents. In the second photo, of a motel bedroom, we see (as is usual) little to no personal touches to the room’s interiors. A washed out blue carpet and bed cover provides the only contrast to the pale orange tones of the rock walls. Luminescent wall lights substitute for windows.
Photo credits: Abigail Varney & Smart Encylopedia