The walls are painted white, although inklings of red and brown dirt can be seen through the paint. No-one is home. They are all working. Each day they climb unstable and worn ladders down the pockmarks, often little wider than their own bodies, in search of the galaxy of colour glistening from the walls of their tunnels. Opals - that is all that seems to sustain people in the mining town of Andamooka, South Australia.
Water is trucked in from elsewhere.
Sure enough, inside a few elderly Americans and some Japanese tourists make exclamations over jewellery glistening with the luminous gems - tiny flecks of which line the street outside. Finally, at dusk, the miners scramble up to the outside world. Their eyes, perhaps still adjusting to the lights, seem wide and manic. The following day we visit the Olympic Dam mine and nearby town of Roxby Downs. We are told that Olympic Dam is mainly a copper mine with small amounts of gold, silver and uranium produced as well.