It really is an awful place. That's why people live underground. Not even the aboriginies stayed out there. The necessity of mining is whats dtiving that particular lifestyle.

Whenever Hollywood wants to shoot an alien landscape like Mission to Mars or Pitch Black... they go to cooper peady.

Also, its a very insular 'community'. Many of the non-miners are there to avoid attention & the miners are VERY protective of their space. And with so much space and so many deep holes... people go 'missing' all the time.

Everything has to be hauled out there from the coast and is therefore very expensive. Can't get a builder at a decent price so they use their workings as shelter from the heat. There's no water & nothing will grow.

Yes, the underground houses are a novelty. But dirt & mustiness are constantly raining down no matter how well they try to seal them.

I'd much prefer a cool breeze on a wooded mountain top.

 

Coober Pedy = No water, No food in any kind of SHTF. Its the middle of the desert.

Of course being preppers we can counter that to a degree, but still, not for me.

The plus side is, aside from the local town, you wont have to worry too much about raiders lol....

Underground houses, on the other hand, I love the idea of in theory (stable temperature, wind proof yada yada) but in reality, aside from those ones in the middle of the desert, you are either going to pay a lot of money to build it, or have all kinds of troubles with water infiltration.

You can have the best of both worlds though by building concrete walled house and then using earth berms up the side of the walls. Of course you have to make sure the house has been designed to take the weight of said burms.

 

lol ja I was also thinking about the raider thing. I like your suggestion of concrete walls and earth berms.

Out of curiosity, with regards to no available water and food there , how do they manage? Do they truck everything in?

 

With Pine Gap being probably the #1 target for nuke attack in Oz...No thanks.LOL.

 

True, I did not think of that. Mind you, perhaps the ET's and their advanced crafts, rumored to be in and out of Pine Gap, will protect the base hey! :

 

I get 6-700mm of rainfall in an average year. Why on Earth would I move to somewhere that only gets 175mm of rainfall in an average year? It just doesn't make sense.

On top of that, it's hot in the summer and bloody cold in the winter!

 

Yeh I get what you are saying. But I think it will be pretty cool to have a dugout home like that somewhere, even if it is in a different area. I like the idea of living underground.

 

I think the dug-out houses are really interesting, but no way would I live there. I don't even want to live in the desert in the US, and that is more hospitable.

 

I no a bloke that just sold a opal mine at lightning ridge, compleat with weatherboard house, some gear to work it for, wait for it $20,000.

If I wasn't so set up were I was, or if things went bad, I would head out to one of those opal mining towns in a heart beat. $100,000 dollars and you could live out there for ever a preper king.

 

Wow, that is very cheap! If I was in Aussie land, I would definitely have considered moving to one of those towns as well.

 

I've got a 1/2 acre block here you can have for $50000, average rainfall of 6-700mm.

 

Hahhaaa,I was kind of thinking 4 or 5 big ones going in so 600k's isn't a good safety margin when it comes to fall out.
Hiroshima was kids play to what they have nowdays.

 

Fallout isn't really that big of a problem when you got a fully stocked underground bunker, and that's the big advantage cooperpeady has. Better of 600km away underground than 2000 km away in a weatherboard house.

Most Australians have a real fear and ignorance of the inland. I couldn't think of a nastier place to live in than half the coastal town in Australia, chocka full of dole bludging dope smokeing surfies extream humidity, full of ticks and stinking of rotten fish and seawead. Cooperpeady wouldn't be my first choice in a place to live but it would be streets ahead of most other towns in Australia.

 

Yep no arguments there dillin,it's a big part of why we bought out bush.

 

You can be out bush and within walking distance of the surf. :thumb:

 

I'm holding out for a big tsunami or sea level rise(Waits patiently for a thousand years)then I'll have the beachfront property the missus always wanted.

 

You think we aint got heat and humidity out bush and I can tell you with the right temp and the breeze wafting the right way road kill sure does smell worse than fish and seaweed rotting.We got a ton of RK around here.LOL.
The sandy soil would be the worst problem but humans can deal with that though

 

Yer much of inland Australia has opresively hot summers.

If your planning on surviveing a big world wide collapse a EOTWAWKI type advent your single biggest concern will be other people. Its relatively straight forward task, though a lot of hard work and drudgery, to become a subsistence peasant in just about any climatic region. Don't believe me? Take a look at some of the hell holes peasant seem to eck out a living in arid regions of India and Africa.

If the ballon drops I would gladly swope nice lush fertile country that had a high population density for semi arid or arid country with a low population density any day. Add to the mix that land in the out back is a fraction of the price you can add a lot of preps for the money saved. Couple of tonnes of wheat would supply the bulk of your food needs for a couple of years at the going rate of $300 per tonne or there abouts.

Check out James M Dakins, blog bison preppers.

 

What you say makes a lot of sense. Thanks for the blog reference, going to check it out.

 

James M Dakin is an American, lives in the desert in Navarda and is great exponent of living on cheap "junk" land that fully paid for with tonnes of wheat and a lee enfield SMLE 303. He is not every ones cup of tea, but makes a lot of good points and I find his writeing style entertaining. Any lover of old 303's is alright in my book.

 

I used to read his blog years ago... i thought I was the only one.

I love he rants on and on about the "yuppie preppers" lol... Anyone with more than $5 is a yuppy by his standards

 

Well I'm sorry but as a meat eating carnie I must point out that living out the in the desert's of Arizona/where ever hot and rocky anywhere,be it there or in Oz,your diet will need to change.Lots of greens,not much meat........welcome to survival 103.

Underground is cool but,better utilized where there is game meat of sorts.And if not,a climate that would at least facilitate the feeding/watering of livestock/meat animals with minimal imput.
I've had a few beers.

 

I got 6" of rain this week.

 

And that is relivant to the conversation about undergound houses in opal mining towns because................??

 

Yeah we copped a load as well,filled the dam and topped up all our tanks.Not even 1/2 way through the month and we've nearly doubled last April's average.

 

Well I don't think they got much rain this month,bugger,I'm not even sure if they got any last month Sooooo being a survivalist like you claimed in another thread,would you not agree that living out at the Coober would be a bad move,be it underground or not..

 

yer but they can always just turn on a tap. Coober Pedy wouldn't be my first choice of the most ideal location for a survivalist, Apart from anything else its still a town, too many people about. Better off in more isolated places in the out back. I would trade Isolation for less than ideal growing conditions in a major collapse any day.

 

No close towns where on our list of must haves,even the tiny ones give me the creeps.There's a big town an hour away and the only reason we're isolated is cause we're smack bang in the middle of thousands upon thousands of rural farming with no close neighbours.I think we've got a good balance of isolation and good growing conditions though summer here can knock it a bit temp wise but we have permanent water,another thing we considered essential for survival.

 

Cooper Pedy looks great...til you been there in January or Feb...or March, April etc ;-)

The underground dwellings work well because of constant underground temp, like anywhere in the country, its big advantage though is the water table, or nearby lack thereof.

Yeah head there in February, stay for a few weeks...not that flash or cheap to live

 

Well I think the original post was more centred on living U/Ground and the Coober was just a reference.I like the idea myself but yeah not in the middle of dry as f**K SA.A well orientated underground or even earth bermed house makes so much more sense thermally as well as the stealth factor.IMHO.

 

The problem with living underground in the wetter areas of the world is that holes have a nasty habit of filling with water at the very worst, and at the least you will have nasty problems with damp, mold and mildew. These problems can be overcome if you prepared to put the time and effort into it but its not as easy as most seem to think, unless you live in a dry area with stable well drained subsoil and a low water table.

Every thing is a compromise no area will tick all the boxes. You can buy 1/2 and acre from ***** for $50,000 dollar that has a good reliable rain fall and I imagine reasonably fertile soil and I'm also guessing has no infostructure on it or you could have bought a working opal mine(make a good bunker) with a tidy little cottage that was partly furnished along with some gear to work the mine for $20,000.

At the barest minium I'm guessing that you would need at least $100,000 to drop a shed and a caravan on sambos block to make it habitable. Most people would end up spending closer to $400, 000 on a block like that. Compare that to lightning ridge example I gave above of $20,000 and virtually nothing else to spend. If your lucky and know what your doing you might evan be able to make the mine pay for itself.

That extra $80,000 to $300,000 you saved moveing to lightning ridge as opposed to next door to ***** can buy you a lot of preps.

Its a bit like selling a old bom second hand car and having the guy say he doesn't like the dint on the door, the faded paint work and sticky clutch. But I'm only asking $500, if it was in prestine condition I would be asking $5,000 for it. People want every thing and to pay nothing for it.

Another example is a know a bloke that bought a house in Fords Bridge a little town literally the back of Burke for $5000 so he had some were to go and stay and go shooting. The house was a real dump but liverable with about 10 ac just across the road from the pub(the only thing of note in the town). You wouldn't grow much out there but there is plenty of sheep and cattle and game both feral and native along with fish and yabbys in the Wargo river near by.

Despit what people will tell you in out back areas there is often quiet a shortage of labor so often work isn't as hard to find as you would expect.

The outback isn't for every one, but survivalist in particular don't give it due consideration it deserves. As I said above, google James M Dakin's blog he describes what I'm referring to fare more eloquently and with much more wit than I can

 

Hey dillin,if ya don't mind answering,do you actually have a retreat of sorts or a block of land you plan on bugging out/retiring on.?

I wouldn't put money into a "western lands" lease block of anything,you might want to look that up.If it doesn't go to hell in a basket real quick then TPTB could boot ya off for whatever reason like mining rights leaving you up the creek.(BTW I think they will drag this BS out long enough to break/enslave a lot of the population and wether or not it happens slow or fast isn't the point)Your best bet is always free hold and to own it outright.Yes I know you never really own the land but,if the Sheeet is only mediocre then it's harder for them to kick you off if all your dues are paid up.Once the council stops functioning,anywhere even the city,then council tax's/rates are a non event and cant be collected.Same with the federal system.

The cheapest option overall and quickest is to have a leasehold property guaranteed by the govt.(99year lease or whatever is still on the lease...30 yrs or so) so even if the council fails in times of dire straights as long as you are paid up you're sweet.There are a lot of those for sale and cheap too considering what you get......about as cheap as a western mining lease,just more security from the way the system will collapse IMO.

Just maybe,if it all goes to poo say tomorrow,then you just might end up with that soggy shelter you so easily dismissed if you haven't a collection of building materials you would need to build the nice one.....shelter/house or lean-to.

So I'm guessing your like me.Got a chainsaw/got a shelter..

 

Hey dillin,if ya don't mind answering,do you actually have a retreat of sorts or a block of land you plan on bugging out/retiring on.?

I got a farm, been a farmer all my life as the rest of my family has been here in Australia for the last 170years or so and for god knows how long before probably back to the stone age. You don't have to ba a abo to have a conection to the land.

All my land is freehold and I don't have any personal experience with western land lease. Its different from state to state, but here in NSW western land leases arnt a lot different in practice to freehold. I know other states are a bit diferent.

I believe you would be fare more likely to be forced from your free hold land in more densely settled areas of NSW than you would by forced off from a block way out west. PSHTF the only ownership will come from what you are able to personally defend. Titles and other pieces of paper will mean nothing.

 

And it's not even rainy season.LOL.

You finished ya parents place yet or are ya slackin.

 

I think a better solution is to really insulate your home really well and if you cannot double glaze, fit shutters. I think once you do that a geo-thermal type air con would be a brilliant addition, a lot cheaper to do than a bunker home and a lot easier.

Bury as much connected storm water 1m or deeper, one end with a fly wire breathing end, maybe with solar powered fan on it, the other end plumbed into your home. In the middle eastsome homes had a very simple version. Let nature do the cooling