Catacombs to Boot Hill

We had our hippee-length hair trimmed at Marj’s dugout hair salon, attached to her beautiful underground home. She gave us a complete and extensive tour: ensuite, walk-in robe as large as most master bedrooms, guest and reception rooms galore. Utterly charming: a unique experience.  

I checked on the internet: anyone, with the wherewithal can buy a completely-kitted-out 3 bedroom dugout here for around $100,000, give or take a few tens of thousands. There are plenty for sale.

We eat at the famed and crowded Tom and Mary’s Greek Taverna in the centre of town, where we feast on platters of protein-rich pork, lamb and beef steak piled over mounds of golden oven baked potatoes with olive oil dressed salad on the side. We dive into wacking great triangles of sticky baklava and rich ice-cream for dessert, finishing off with a sweet, thick, grainy, black Greek coffee, to die for.

Our crew at the Greek Taverna

Then, in penance, we traipse around all the church dugouts we can find: the Serbian, with its religious icons and five-level ceiling vault cleverly carved into sandstone walls and ceilings; the cosy Catholic, very homely; the Anglican Catacomb, my favourite, kitted out with a starkly minimalist black bush-timber altar and décor.  Simple and stunning.

Gorgeous altar 

A whimsical sign for Boot Hill Cemetery took us on a quick detour over gravel to the town cemetery, which now ranks up there among the most interesting outback cemetery we have seen.

Whimsy at Boot Hill 

One grave has a keg embedded in the surface. Intravenous is good, if you can get it no other way. You just know this guy must have been good fun. Billy Connolly even mentions this grave on his Aussie bike ride tour. 

Another has friends who regularly leave full bottles and unopened cans of beer for ‘ron: for the hereafter. Many of the deceased are clearly characters. There is a headstone for Crocodile Harry; another for the beloved daughter of John and Yoka, who, we can see still have a shop downtown. Imagine. 

Then there’s Buffalo Tony, whose lifelong partner happened to be, Handy Anny. A large number of gravesites are for Serbs, Croatians, Germans, Hungarians, Italians and Greeks. There are, reputedly, fifty different nationalities living in Coober Pedy, many of them wishful miners, hoping to strike it rich.   Before they get to Boot Hill.

May they rest in peace

oooOOOooo