Top 10 things to See and Do in Andamooka!

   

1) Andamooka Observatory Tours

The Andamooka Observatory is a family-owned tour business that can create personalised and private itineraries that take our guests into one of Australia’s last Outback frontiers: the Andamooka Opal Fields. Our bespoke premium tours are ideal for guests who want a pristine desert experience, sensational starry nights, fine food and wine, vast open spaces, abundant wildlife, and marvel at Australia’s national gemstone: Opal.
We can customise private tours to include delicious bush tucker banquets and beverages, searching for opal with LED (Ultraviolet) flashlights, opal mining, paleontology, opal cutting lessons, birding, sunsets, stargazing, and nocturnal tours.
Most of our guests choose to fly to Andamooka via Olympic Dam Airport for convenience or due to time constraints. The flight between Adelaide and Olympic Dam takes about 1 hour and 10 minutes.
The Andamooka Observatory was ranked second with the Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary in the South Australian Tourism Commission’s ‘Best Places to Stargaze in South Australia’.
The Andamooka Observatory has been featured on the Discovery Channel’s ‘Opal Hunters: Red Dirt Roadtrip’, Channel 10’s ‘The Project’, Channel 9, SKY, Channel 7, Channel 10, ABC News, social media, and radio.

Enquire about booking your Andamooka tours: 0466265377 /0487112747

Go noodling (fossicking)  for opal, dinosaur bones, fossils, Australites, gems and gold on a Andamooka Observatory Opal Mining 101 Tour

2) Andamooka Post Office

A Post Office with a difference

Open 7 days

Includes:

+Services of the Mines Department and Outback Community Authority
+Andamooka Opal Showroom Underground Opal & Mineral Museum
+Dukes Bottlehouse Motel
+Laundromat
+Weather station
+Café / Conference Centre
+Replica opal mine
+Art gallery that includes one of Australia’s finest gemstone and opal book collections
+Home of the Andamooka Opal Showroom and Underground Museum a simulated opal mine and a host of treasures from the earth
+Visit Karkaroo! Take special note of Karkaroo the opalised Andamooka Plesiosaur downstairs in the Underground Opal & Mineral Museum. Karkaroo came to reside in the Andamooka Opal Underground Museum in August 2018 and recently was put on public display. The colourful opalised bones of this juvenile plesiosaur was found in the false level (8.5 meters) at Tea Tree in October 2016
+Over 800 opal pieces, ranging from rare specimens, cut stones, fossils, matrix and early local souvenirs
Worldwide opal display, synthetic opal display, and a vast array of gems and minerals, stromatolites, meteorites and “space junk’

(08) 8672 7007
Margot Duke: Outback tourism pioneer. Margot has worked in the opal, tourism and accommodation industry in Andamooka for 56 years.
Host of the Solar Eclipse Longest Dinner Table Party, the Starlight Cocktail Bar, the Year of the Outback Events
Margot been recognised many tourism and business awards for the Flinders Ranges and Outback Region and is well known for her fundraising efforts in the local community and the Royal Flying Doctors. Margot and Peter regularly attend tourism, interstate and overseas opal and gem trade events
Peter ‘the Oracle’ Taubers: Opal gouger, opal cutter and jeweller. Curator of the Andamooka Opal Showroom Underground Opal & Mineral Museum.Over 40 years of opal mining has taken Peter far and wide across the Australian Opal Fields and Europe. Peter has prospecting and mining in the Andamooka Opal Field, White Dam Opal Diggings and the Stuart Creek Opal Diggings
Regular communication with opal industry and opal miners through regular attendance at Australian Opal & Gem shows and Tucson
Get all things Andamooka and Opal from Margot, Peter, Bec and Leila at the Andamooka Post Office!
Check out the Andamooka Noodling (Fossicking) Kit Show Bag Bucket that includes: UV light(100 led) with batteries, Geo pick, Safety glasses, Spray bottle, Maps and More!
The Andamooka Post Office / Opal Showroom also stocks: Mosquito / Fly Nets, Noodling Maps, Compasses, Picks, Hats, Happiness and Stubby Coolers.

3) Cal the Stoner’s Outdoor Stonemasonry Studio

From St Kilda, Melbourne to the Australian outback. As the scale of Cal’s sculptures grew. New studios were required. Cal moved around a variety of locations in Melbourne. Then someone suggested the Australian outback opal mining town of Andamooka. Cal promptly loaded his sculptures, stone and studio into an old bus and drove 1307 kilometers across the desert.
See Cal the Stoner at work at his open-air sculpture studio between 2pm – 3pm each day.
Entry fee is a cold beer.
The Andamooka Tiger is made of Grampian sandstone. A life-sized tiger that has Andamooka Rainbow Matrix Opal eyes, teeth, claws, and the tip of the tail!
Call Cal and let him know you are coming: 0403042973

4) Dodgy Brothers Liquor Store ( Andamooka Cellarbrations)

Stock up on snacks & supplies available at the Dodgy Brothers Liquor Store!
Open 7 days. 9am – 8pm
Sunday open 10am – 8pm
1002 Dodgy Drive
Rob and Jim have been opal mining in Andamooka for 36 years.
Fine opal and matrix display
(08) 8672 7183

5) Shopping at Boo-Teek’ OP Shop

Open 9 – 12 Friday and Saturday morning! According to ABC’s Peter Goers OAM  the Boo-Teek’ OP Shop is the Best CWA Shop in Australia.
Run by the Country Women’s Association Andamooka and volunteers, raising funds vital to the local community
CWA Road

6) Historic Cottages

Semi-dugouts historic cottages along Opal Creek Blvd, made in the 1930s by early pioneers and miners. Open for all year round.  Listed on the National Heritage Register. Offer visitors the opportunity to get up close and experience living in early Andamooka

7 ) Tuckabox Hotel

  •  The only pub, the legendary Tuckabox Hotel has been closed since March 2020
The first COVID-19 restrictions and international border closures has been devastating and had terrible consequences in the Andamooka Opal Fields. The only general store also closed September 2020, the petrol / diesel station closed September 2020, Andamooka Yacht Club cafe / art space closed, the 2 town’s water trucks closed, community, arts , live music and tourism events were cancelled.

8 )Andamooka New Cemetery ( Boot Hill)

Every grave is unique, and each name tells a story due to the variety of different nationalities that lay up there. Annual All Souls Night. Many sites displayed the deceased’s personal effects, often their mining gear. Some epitaphs only offered the date of death, with birthdays forgotten or never known