Even the churches are underground

Uluru via Stuart Highway 2025

Coober Pedy deals with the heat by going underground, and once you notice it you cannot stop noticing it. Houses, shops, and the churches.

The Serbian Orthodox church is cut straight into the rock. The ceiling is a row of carved scallops left by the machine that dug it, there is a stained glass window high on the end wall, and icons the size of doors stand against walls that are still visibly a mine face. Underground the temperature barely moves, so it was cool and still whatever the day was doing outside.

The Catacomb Church up the road is plainer: a lectern carved from a tree trunk and an altar built on an old mine bucket.

Then St Peter and St Paul, the Catholic one. Inside, rows of chairs face an altar set into the rock, with statues in carved niches on either side.

Three churches in one small town, and every one of them dug rather than built.

Charging

No charging today. We started full from the powered campsite, drove between the sites all day.

The next morning we topped up at the town's fast charger, while grabbing brunch, before driving a few hundred kilometres north towards Uluru.

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