THE
WORDS Tess Durack
OPAL
For many of The Ghan Expedition guests, the journey through iconic Coober Pedy is an unforgettable outback stop. But for long-time resident and opal miner Yanni Athanasiadis, it’s a world where life is lived underground, treasures are unearthed from the desert, and a unique community thrives against the odds. Step off the tracks and discover Yanni’s Coober Pedy.
EFFECT
ABOVE: YANNI ATHANASIADIS
Alien Apocalyptic. Lunar. Barren.
Coober Pedy (Umoona) has long sent its visitors scrambling for adjectives to describe its unique, sun-scorched vistas, mullock (excavated dirt and gravel) heaps and subterranean accommodations. The ‘breakaway’ country surrounding the town supports not a blade of grass, and the extreme temperatures sent its residents underground decades ago.
It has always attracted travellers hungry for the ‘real’ outback, adventurers curious to witness a landscape that stretches out like a forgotten ocean, and treasure hunters drawn by the treasures that lie beneath its seemingly desolate surface.
For a young Yanni Athanasiadis, fresh from military service in the early 1970s and with no intention of leaving his hometown of Thessaloniki in Greece, the lure of that famed treasure and the fortune it promised would eventually lead him to Coober Pedy.
An uncle had gone out to Australia decades before and, on a rare visit back to Greece, regaled his young nephew with tales of shimmering opals in every colour of the rainbow. Yanni vividly remembers their night out together at a rowdy bouzouki bar, his uncle throwing money around and Yanni collecting it, astonished. “Don’t worry, there’s plenty more where that came from,” Yanni remembers him saying. “Just have a good time!”
But, for young Yanni, it didn’t make any sense.
“I didn’t know what opal mining was. I didn’t even know what an opal looked like. The next morning, with clearer heads, he explained it to me, and I thought to myself, I’ll go for one year and come back a rich man.”
And what was it like, moving to Australia as such a young man? “I didn’t move to Australia,” corrects Yanni with a grin. “I moved to Coober Pedy.”
He understood then, as he still does now, that in many ways Coober Pedy is a world of its own. Located 850 kilometres north of Adelaide (Tarntanya) and with a population then of barely 1,200, it is a town that demands resilience.
His first impressions of the place? Another smile: “If I wasn’t so stubborn and so full of pride, I would have turned around and gone home straight away! There wasn’t even running water. We would be given a 44-gallon drum of water each week and a bucket, and that was it. And for the first two or three years, I lived in a tin shed.”
But if he thought the living conditions were tough, working in the mines set a whole new bar for endurance.
“I look back now and can’t believe how dangerous it was. We worked all the time with explosives. We’d have two people down in the hole, one up above, and we’d fill up a 24-gallon drum, winch it to the top, empty it, then send it back down.
“I would always take two T-shirts; when one got soaked in sweat, I’d hang it up to dry and put the other one on until it got soaked in sweat. It was hard, dangerous work.”
He shakes his head, remembering, and then: “But when you’re young, you think anything is possible. You have a strong coffee, take a little nap, and go back to the mine.”
“To me, it’s harsh and beautiful. I love to stand there looking out across that beautiful nothingness.”
Yanni Athanasiadis
THE COLOURS OF FORTUNE
Those few years stretched into decades, and while Yanni returned to Greece many times, Coober Pedy always called him back. The early days were lucrative, and he’d made around $14,000 by the time he was 23 – a lot of money in those days, enough even to buy a house in Adelaide. “But I was a young man! I spent it as quickly as I earned it.”
His luck in the mines wouldn’t come again so abundantly, and he’s seen as many hopes dashed as dreams realised over the years. Opal deposits are as unpredictable as they are mysterious, and the element of chance involved makes finding them a fool’s errand for some and a life-changing source of riches for others.
But Yanni saw early on that opal mining wasn’t the only way to find success in Coober Pedy. Tourists eager to buy opals at the source and to see the town’s extraordinary ‘dugouts’ were arriving in greater numbers.
When the Stuart Highway was sealed in 1987, the town became even more accessible. Today, The Ghan Expedition offers a one-of-a-kind journey, combining the romance of train travel with the harsh beauty of the outback and an up-close experience of the town itself.
Yanni’s entrepreneurial spirit and determination to build a life for his wife, Cristina, and their growing family led him to invest strategically in tourism and develop the Umoona Opal Mine and Museum into one of the town’s key attractions. Yes, the opals beneath the ground drew people, but it was the town itself, with its strange underground life, fascinating history, and distinctive beauty, that would keep people coming back.
He became increasingly involved in the community, joining the Council, the hospital board and the Greek Club, and using the local Business Association to promote the town as an iconic outback destination. He created films to show visitors at the Umoona Opal Mine Museum, put guides on buses, and welcomed countless travellers from The Ghan Expedition.
“They wouldn’t know what to expect and they’d always be amazed – intrigued by the town’s history, the way people lived underground, and the opals themselves.”
Yanni would go on to open jewellery shops in Adelaide and Darwin (Garramilla), and ran his businesses from offices in Melbourne (Naarm) and Adelaide with help from his son. Today, Yanni is officially retired, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at his travel and daily dedication to his businesses.
“I’ve been lucky to travel all over the world with my family and to jewellery trade shows in Europe, Asia and America. People everywhere love Coober Pedy opals.”
But after all these years, has he got over them?
“Never. I work with incredible gems, including diamonds. But in fifty years, I have never seen anything as special as an opal. It has all the colours of the spectrum, you turn it one way and the other, trying to decide which side is the most stunning. Opals are the most magical.”
And Coober Pedy itself still casts a familiar spell.
“Now I live mostly in Adelaide with my wife and my family. But we still have our wonderful dugout home in Coober Pedy and return often.
“Whenever I go back, my heart starts to beat faster and I think, this is my home, this is my world.”
Yanni can’t pinpoint the moment at which Coober Pedy – its community, its landscape, its treasures above and below ground – got under his skin and into his blood, but, for all the hardship, he says he wouldn’t change anything and would happily do it all again.
And as for that so-called barren landscape, those alien vistas?
“To me, it’s harsh and beautiful. I love to stand there looking out across that beautiful nothingness.”
THE DETAILS
TOUR
Let The Ghan Expedition take you to the heart of the outback and far below it. On this unforgettable Off Train Experience in Coober Pedy, step into an underground world shaped by stories and shimmering opals. Discover the town’s iconic dugouts, explore the Umoona Opal Mine & Museum, enjoy a gourmet lunch in an underground mine, and feel the thrill of standing on a landscape like no other on earth. Prices start at $3,690 per person, twin share, departing from Darwin and travelling through to Adelaide. The journey is inclusive of all meals, fine wines, and immersive Off Train Experiences, including Coober Pedy.