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.. 

In this whirlwind edition the GO bro's are so sick of chasing potch that they have a smash at pillarbashing only to be reminded of how generally unrewarding crawling around on their guts and finding next to nothing can be..

4 days and about 30 odd hours of pillarbashing our claim with a jackpick produces copious amounts of potch (coloruless, low value opal) with a few surprises.. Just enough to keep us digging, who knows if it's good or bad until we exhaust the area.. Not an easy job, but hopefully rewarding in the end..

 

Day one, fly to Coobs and get out to Dead Horse for a quick 4 inch drill after an old friend
who found 30 years ago, no joy.
Day two, head to Donna's Rush to chase potch, and more potch, with a few small but pleasant surprises, enough to warrant another day.

Day three, continue chasing bloody potch with the jackpick and drill, my arms feel as though they're about to spontaneously detach, a few lovely but small gems to show for it.

On the fourth and final day, extremely fatigued from manual digging (I'm not exactly 'work hard' these days) and only a few possible hours to find something worthwhile, I head down an old haunt on Olympic where I knew the slide produced good colour decades ago.

The drives in the first shaft are only 40 feet long, blasted shut to the top level, I ascend and devour an amazing, if cool CK's Bakery steak and mushroom pie.
This is it, my last flourish of energy before heading back to Adelaide early day five..
Well what do you know.. BIG GEMS!

Watch the full adventure HERE: