3. Coober Pedy, South Australia

On film: Unnamed in Pitch Black

Fly over South Australia’s Painted Desert to Coober Pedy and you see thousands of tiny hills like piles of icing sugar. It doesn’t feel like Earth. Check into your underground rock hotel and you wouldn’t be surprised if the receptionist had three heads and a green tail.

Unsurprising, then, that this outback opal mining town was used as an otherworldly location in 2000’s Pitch Black, the cult sci-fi hit that’s already spawned two sequels (with another reportedly on the way). Otherwise it’s a movie veteran – The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert; Mad Max: Beyond the Thunderdome; and Wim Wenders’ Until the End of the World.

Underground creatures lurk in the dark – we’re talking about Pitch Black here. In reality, you can tour the individual holes in the ground and see if you can chisel a precious stone or two. The crashed transport ship in the film was brought by a local shop and is still on display – though many tourists seem to mistake it for a prop from Star Wars.