Old Timers Mine and Museum

The mine was first worked around 1916, making it one of the oldest claims still accessible in the Coober Pedy field. The self-guided circuit winds through low tunnels lit by the kind of improvised lamps that early miners would have used, passing exposed opal seams and hand-hewn chambers that have been left largely as they were found. Interpretive panels explain the geology of precious opal and the punishing conditions miners endured.

Attached to the mine is an original underground dugout home, furnished with artefacts from the 1920s to the 1960s, that shows how families actually lived beneath the surface, from the kitchen with its kerosene stove to the bedroom carved directly into the rock. A separate museum room holds tools, photographs and documents tracing the European settlement of Coober Pedy from the first opal discovery in 1915.

After the tour, a noodling area lets visitors sift through tailings brought up from the opal field. The site also has an on-site caravan park and an opal shop with stones cut and polished on the premises.