I’ll be visiting Australia for the first time in a few months and alongside about 1000 other places, I really want to see the small town of Coober Pedy. A tiny town 800 miles north of Adelaide, it is home to fewer than 2000 inhabitants – some of them the indigenous Australians descended from the Nomadic peoples that lived there for centuries.

Famous for being the main source of Opal gemstones in the world Coober Pedy is a place full of eccentricity and authenticity – due to the isolated location and small population. Melbourne-based photographer Abigail Varney has captured the town in a series of photos entitled ‘Rough & Cut’. They show the sun-bleached, almost desolate Coober Pedy in an eerie light, there are no inhabitants in the photographs to add to the sense of a forgotten land. It’s certainly a place like no other – definitely one for the bucket list!

Rough & Cut by Abigail Varney