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..
See the video, slightly edited and hosted on Young Guns Opal Hunters site:
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.
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In April 2020 we were blacklighting (using a UV torch at night) for opal on the legendary Larkins Folly opal field about 15 kilometres west of Coober Pedy Australia.
The stories from old timers about Larkins in the 60's are eye watering. Massive slides (opal bearing faults) that ran for hundreds of metres making, in places obscene amounts of super gem quality opal that was only found on a few rare, small hills on our blue marble.
Over the years we have ventured ointo many of the old mines where accessible, mostly via 60 foot deep shafts, and have had some success finding leftovers of this giant patch of history.
On this particular night, we stumbled upon a rock with a bit of nice colour poking out, watch the video to see the spectacular treasure hidded within!