This episode the Grace Opal boys check out a newly torched hit and run vehicle, descend down a hairy 12 foot diameter shaft, weave through red back nests underground before nearly getting pulled through the pulley at the top of a 60 foot shaft.. We do manage to find some beautiful colour in a long abandoned claim where a fortune in top opal may still be hiding! Fingers crossed our renewed explosive licenses come through so we can blow some big holes to get to the big opal. On the way home we narrowly avoid beasts of feathers and hide and survive to push towards the dream to retire... And go opal mining..
We had a disappointing day in an interesting claim we have had an eye on for years when I badly damaged some opal digging it out, a story i will tell another time..
Exhausted and mentally filthy, morale was dwindling in the late afternoon as i drove to another spot i'd mined some eye popping opal shells and verticals in about 20 years back.
Although the claim reeked of opal, i didnt have the energy to go and start a new adventure. Theres always next time, that is, until there's not.
Suffice to say, i was so disgusted at the senseless loss of gem opal, and particularly in the absence of anything else noteworthy, that i had determined to pack up shop and head south for the summer, seeing the trip was a dud..
However....
As is often the case, hope springs with the sunrise and blasts off with a heavy shot of caffeine..
With new faith and froth 'Fraith'? I set off before the sun and went down with nothing but my trusty jackpick. The idea is that i knew i'd left some nice traces around back in the day and a jackpick gives the ability to chase it much harder than just a hand pick.
Sure enough, the trace came good in a few small patches and yielded some outstanding quality material as seen in the video and pictures.
We hope there's more opal adventures to come and will bring the colour as it appears beneath the desert at the behest of the pick and shovel..
It’s late July 2023 and we are back at it on our Olympic claim. When working virgin ground there’s a lot of maintenance and repetitive work that needs doing to get us to the hypothetical prize of that big pocket. while Shannon is developing a ‘shovel free’ way to load the tipper, I’m scratching around in some level we drove under about 25 years ago and discover a small pocket of stunning crystal seam. As is often the case, a few little geckos have fallen down the mine and we try to get them back up and out into the bush wherever possible. The opal is thin, the ground is bloody hard, but the weather is beautiful and we even drill an air shaft with our old mate Nick. No complaints from God’s country.. One of these days we will crack it..
This video is now hosted on Young Guns Outback Opal Hunters YouTube Channel!
After 5 weeks at the literal grindstone (opal cutting and jewellery making) I manage to tootle up to Coobs for a quick mission. While still half asleep my mind wandered to an area of the Old 15 Mile that I realised we had never been down. This is significant in that there is almost nowhere we haven’t thoroughly searched on this field since discovering how beautiful the opal can be here about 30 years ago. As is often the case, anticipation quickly turns to frustration, not helped by precipitously dangerous ground with opal traces that is ready to collapse with a sneezing mouse. We do however escape the deadly red back spider and find some stunning crystal opal shells.
