Underground Coober Pedy Experience Motel listed for sale
One of Australia’s truly unique hotels – an underground opal-mine motel featuring glistening specks of opal in its walls – could be yours.
Offering a real gem of an outback investment in the town where Mad Max Thunderdome was filmed, the Coober Pedy Experience Motel is for sale with price expectations in excess of $2.5 million.
The quirky offering on Crowders Gully Road has 16 spacious underground rooms with en suites in a remote opal mining settlement of Coober Pedy, in the heart of Central Australia.
The subterranean South Australian stay, about 950 kilometres north-west of Adelaide along the Stuart Highway, also boasts a function and conference centre for up to 80 guests – the only of its kind in the town – an owner’s residence and a gift shop.
Coober Pedy, located on the edge of the Great Victoria Desert, is considered the opal capital of the world, and is famous for its scorching climate, lunar-like landscape and underground labyrinth of churches, shops and homes.
The town is also home to an amateur horse racing club, a heritage Serbian Orthodox Church, an 18-hole grassless golf course, a drive-in theatre, and an airport.
The 2530-square-metre motel is the only of its kind in the town carved from an original opal mine first established in the early 1900s, to a backdrop of deep orange mountains that emerge like ice-cream peaks in the flat desert landscape.
Repurposing 16 mine shafts where opals and other precious stones were extracted from the seams into a 16-room motel in 1990, the former owners ran the Choice Hotels’ Comfort Inn for 30 years before vendor Hector Xu took the reins after it was listed for sale in 2020.
Xu runs the now-independent motel, just 700 metres from the town’s centre, “where history, luxury and adventure come together underground”. It has attracted a 4.6-star Google rating.
“A favourite among both holidaymakers and corporate travellers,” the listing reads.
Specks of opal are still clearly visible in guest room walls and common areas, and historic photos line the motel walls.
ResortBrokers South Australian agent Kelli Crouch describes the opportunity as a “tree change opportunity like no other.”
“It would suit an owner-occupier who’s looking for a unique lifestyle with a motel that’s been a rock-solid accommodation business for over 30 years.
“As locals will tell you, Coober Pedy can get very hot. But you’d never know it in the motel. It’s a comfortable temperature all year round thanks to the natural insulation of being underground.”
In a landscape where the blistering sun can nudge close to 50 degrees, new owner-occupiers will be able to reside in a two-bedroom dugout with a separate lounge, kitchen and dining area.
To escape the searing desert heat, about 80 per cent of the town’s residents live in underground dugouts carved into sandstone, where the temperature remains a comfortable 24 degrees year-round.
These dugouts are also home to the town’s attractions, including churches, shops and hotels.
The unique cave-like motel – running on average at 65 per cent capacity – offers “significant upside” for operators keen to expand its simple operations.
Expansion is underway, with an extra nine underground rooms already carved out.
The motel also benefits from passive income earned from an NRMA electric vehicle charging station.
Coober Pedy, where a three-bedroom home costs on average $120,000, boasts a multicultural population of around 1700, mostly single and aged 60-plus.
ResortBrokers say the quirky motel has won multiple awards, including Choice Hotels – Gold Award Winner 2017.
The motel is a close walk from amenities, including the Old Timers Mine and Museum and the Big Winch Lookout, and two kilometres from the Stuart Highway.
