Our Airbnb experience in deserted Coober Pedy

A town in the middle of the desert, in the center(ish) of Australia, where houses are built underground. This was our next destination on our journey to see Australia.

Our last blog post was about us in the town of Port Augusta, another town in the middle of desert type terrain. That was definitely an experience, and we hadn’t had enough of red dirt and interesting country folk, so we continued the journey further north, deeper into the desert. And really we were also quite excited to visit the town underground! We had heard lots of stories from people who had stopped in or always wanted to visit it (dad) and so our interest was piqued. After all its not every day you visit a town that is buried underground right?!

The day started out at 46 degrees and really it just continued from there. ALL DAY!

Luckily we spent the entirety of the day in the car, with the beautiful cold air conditioning. And really how wonderful it was, we could focus on the cool air, the good music playing and dirt. So much damn red dirt!

The drive really only consisted of the road and dirt, there is no interesting story to tell or things we noticed along the way, other than the relief we felt when we arrived.

First place we stopped into was one of the local bottle shops and grabbed ourselves some beer. It was hot, there was dirt so beer was a necessity!

Next stop was our Airbnb for the night. Wouter had found us one of the iconic houses in the ground, somewhere we could cool down and rest after the long travel. After all who wants to camp on hard desert dirt when its 46 degrees outside??!!

When we arrived out the front it looked like a shelter for a desert storm or something. And really the town resembled the same sort of picture. Rusted machines dotted here and there, dusty streets and houses buried under dirt. So when we walked up to our Airbnb our immediate thoughts were, it doesn’t resemble the pictures much. But once we walked through the door, firstly we were hit with a wall of cool air. Secondly we saw a beautiful cave dinning area, with a cave kitchen and then beautiful cave bedrooms. You get it we were staying in a cave. And you see how cool it really was.

Once we unloaded the car we pretty much stayed inside, in the cool. That was until sunset where we attempted to glimpse the stunning desert glow.

After a moment in the heat we sought out shelter inside, where I then attempted to make cous cous. And you would think, as did I, that cous cous, especially when you watch Jamie Oliver make it, that it would be simple to make. Well turns out I can mess up the simplest of things like cous cous. I ended up serving the men a delicious plate of mush, it tasted good, so good mush, but still.

The remainder of our stay in the Coober Pedy cave house was enjoyable and eventful. That night we all settled into comfortable beds, only to feel very lucky to be inside and not camping. There was this intense wind that somehow started right when we all went to try sleep. It continued all through the night, and when we woke the next morning it was so different. Different in the sense that instead of 46 degrees like the day before, it was only 20 degrees, with a breeze and it was glorious! I think I even put on a jumper it was that much of a difference. Definitely not what you ever expect to wake up to after a day like 46 degrees, but that’s the desert.

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