Merry Xmas and all the best for 2010 and to all those opal miners out there, may 2010 be a "colourful" one.

The photos above show in order - Tammy looking great with Noah / the family - Trent, Tammy, Bailey and Noah / "Poppy" with Noah / The family at Xmas dinner /the machine above the hole showing the ironstone levels I am chasing / using the excavator in the hole / checking out some stone in the hole / Grahams new 23 tonne machine / a lovely split I cut / a nice set I cut from the one stone including a slice that came out in the shape of Aust.

The year is all but over and how quick it has gone - I say that every year lately and the old fellows just tell me that the years just go quicker as you get older. Overall I must say that this year has been the best one for a while as far as the mining and the enquiry for material goes. I hope it continues on for next year as well - I know the number of miners at Koroit is getting less each year as costs and interference from Gov. departments takes its toll.

This year has seen the appearance of the Environmental Protection Authority and Safety and Health with yearly levies on each lease of a minimum of $500 per year and I can see it getting worse. We are grouped in the same category as the big coal and other mineral mining companies which is absolutely ridiculous, and some of the safety issues that have come up are just laughable when you are a sole miner working a hole 50 metres square, but unfortunately, as a couple of defiant miners have found out, they have the power to just close us down on the spot. It means that we are all going to have to change our ways in the future and that is why I know of quite a few miners that are giving the game away. I feel for them because most of them are just retired fellows that do this as a hobby, enjoy the lifestyle and have never done the wrong thing by anyone and just stick to themselves as most opal miners do. It must be said that there has never been a reportable accident amongst the present miners at Koroit and some have been there for a long time but, the Gov. coffers need filling up so opal miners are now on the hit list. I actually feel that there will be more chance of an accident happening with the constant interference than if we were just left alone as we have been in the past. I must say that right from when I started mining this lease 4 years ago, I always had a feeling that we would eventually be under scrutiny from Gov. departments so I did plan my digging accordingly, backfilling as I went, time consuming as it is, but it has paid off as I got a clean bill of health from both departments and they are even talking about using it as an example to others with my permission - maybe!

On the mining front - I continued on Gernot's lease until late Nov - I managed to get some reasonable material but on the whole only lower grade stuff - very saleable but nothing really good which is what I was hoping for. I spent the rest of Dec just slicing up material I got from when I was working with Gernot earlier in the year and cutting a few of the better stones. I did a lot of photographing of stones and little parcels of rough which will be going on the website and also on Ebay next year when Lyn and I have a month or so at Diamond Beach. I certainly have more stock in cut stones than I have ever had so if I can get things moving on the website, I may be able to move some there as well as visiting the usual buyers while I am away from home. I must say that I am not too worried if I don't sell as I think that demand is going to outstrip supply over the next couple of years. Koroit material is very different to most other boulder opal as you can see if you look at the stones on the website - http://www.cooperopals.com/ - it is becoming more scarce as the miners disappear and, also it is getting harder to find as the years go on. Koroit is only a small area and a lot of exploration work has been done looking for new areas but they are just not there - the field is only small and that is the way it will stay. There are leases for sale but to buy a lease and have the gear to work it, a couple of hundred thousand dollars will disappear very quickly - definitely not the hobbyist game anymore!

I mentioned in my last post that Graeme next door was waiting for his new excavator to arrive and it did eventually come and it is a very nice machine. He spent the last month mining with me on Gernots lease and got a real taste of breaking lots of material with little results - definitely the miners plight - he didn't do any better than me, only getting lower grade material but it certainly gave him a idea of what is too come if he decides to keep at it. I am sure he will and I certainly hope he does as it was great to have some company close handy.

It was definitely the hottest it has been leading up to Xmas than any year previously and the constant dust storms didn't help much either. The heatwave that everybody had in Nov was pretty trying - I have a small weather station with inside and outside temperature readings - the outside one under the carport and always in the shade. It never got under 45C for over ten days outside and up to 49C one day - inside wasn't much better and the nights were pretty ordinary as well - most nights going to bed at 10pm it was still 35C inside. I seemed to get a pretty good nights sleep with a little fan and we just worked all day as the air conditioners just couldn't do the job at all. At least there was a breeze every day so the sweat cooling was enough to keep us both hanging in there. Even when the heatwave was over, 40C every day until we left was the usual thing - at least the nights were better and we could get a good nights sleep. We both agreed that bigger generators and more air conditioners are the order for next year. I am certainly not whining about it otherwise I could have packed up and left like everybody else but it certainly was the toughest couple of months I have spent out there. It is nice sitting here in Toowoomba at the moment - certainly a lot more comfortable but not as quiet of course.

Lyn and I have spent Xmas with the kids here in Toowoomba and it has been great to catch up with our new grandson before they head off to Canberra in the new year. Trent has a transfer with the Airforce and they will be down there for three years and they are both looking forward to it. Mitchell and Zara are going really well even though Mitchel has just been diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, which has come as a fair shock to us all. It certainly means a big change in lifestyle for him but at least he will be healthier as long as he does the right thing. I think Zara is quite enjoying giving him the insulin shot every day. Lyn and I are heading up to Noosa Heads for New Year to spend it with my family, I will be doing my usual stint with Mick on his macadamia nut farms during January while Lyn is returning to Cunnamulla to work for the month. We are then heading for Diamond Beach for hopefully about six weeks giving us both a chance to unwind for a while together. We will visit Tammy and Trent in March in Canberra as they will have settled into there new home by then.

I have rambled on enough for this post - I am looking forward to a good year in 2010 and wish everybody who has taken the time to read this - all the best for the New Year.

October is nearly gone already and here I am sitting here in jeans and jumper, it is raining cats and dogs and it is 16 degrees C. Yesterday at this time in the morning it was 35 degrees and the sweat was pouring off me - the weather has been so changeable this last few months but the rain is very welcome after so many dust storms that have been raging most days over the last month. September/October are notoriously windy months but it has been particularly bad this year and with no rain for most of the year so far, the dust has been very bad - I can't whinge though, it is part of living out here - you have to take the good with the bad and I wouldn't change it for anything.

So much for all my going on about working on the website - http://www.cooperopals.com/ - I haven't done a damn thing since my last post except put some sold signs on the stones that I have sold. These were all sold to buyers here so I haven't yet sold anything off the site but I know that once the effort is put in the rewards will come. Now that the hotter days are coming I will only be mining in the mornings so will start spending more time on the processing and selling side.

The big news following on from last post is that we are grandparents again - we have a grandson, Noah James Oldham, born at 4.20 on Tuesday morning, 20th October. Tammy was actually due on the 12th so the little bugger was quite content where he was - anyway, all went well with the home birth and mother and son are both terrific and Trent is one very proud dad. I don't know where the name Noah came from , James or even Jim sounds much better to me - I think I'll call him that rather than Noah! Lyn has had a couple of weeks at Toowoomba with them helping out and is actually on her way home this week loaded up with supplies for the next couple of months. We always do our dry goods shopping while we are away as it is so much cheaper than buying out here. I only have a couple of photos for now but will certainly have plenty when Lyn gets home for the next post.

On the mining front - it has been a very busy time since finishing the big hole at Gernot's, and as I said in my last post, we were moving over to Gene's lease to go down even deeper. Well that job is now finished and I am back on my hole on Gernot's as I would like to finish the job there before moving the machines back over here to the Shallows just before Xmas. It turned out to be a massive hole at Gene's - we were down on a level of nuts at nearly 50 feet and it was amazing to see a 30 ton excavator in a hole that deep, as you could walk up to the hole and not even know it was there. I was shifting the dirt out of the hole and moving it away so at times would be perched up on mulloch heaps 20 feet in the air and the other machine was a long way down below me. The actual amount of material we got was disappointing as Gene did not realise how much that part of his lease had been tunnelled out before he purchased it - we had some quite frustrating days where we were consistently breaking into tunnels - there was little material left there for us. We did finally get into some virgin ground and did find some nice nuts - a couple in particular as the photos show. The only trouble was that by then we had run out of room so it was agreed that we wouldn't open the hole up anymore this year but would continue next year, and I think that will be very promising by the signs we had at the finish. I did just over 70 hours on my machine and with what we got should break even or maybe a little more, so I was very happy with the outcome - could have found nothing at all! At least we now have the hole open and it will all be easier for next year when we attack it again - I certainly learnt a lot as I have never had a go at a hole that big before.

Everybody has now left the field for this year except for Graeme next door so it is good for both of us to have someone else around until we both pack up before Xmas. He is expecting his new excavator any day as he has been battling along with his 6 ton machine and finding it a little frustrating. He and his son have purchased a 23 ton machine - a perfect size for digging in this area and I know he is looking forward to it arriving. He has been giving me a bit of a hand down on Gernot's driving my old machine and enjoying seeing some opal come out. We haven't found anything to fantastic but enough saleable material to pay for the diesel. I have quite a lot of stuff to process over the coming months so should end up with a reasonable amount to bombard the website over summer - I had better start getting serious about it as Xmas is coming too quickly.

Photos show Noah Oldham at 6 hours old, proud dad Trent and brother Bailey with Noah, Nanny Lyn with Noah - the hole at Gene's getting a start, getting bigger and deeper, the opal ground starting to show, one of the many tunnels we uncovered, the two machines working together and two of the better nuts found.

http://www.cooperopals.com/ - click here to check it out!

What a changeable month August was with record high temperatures everywhere and here as well, with one day getting over the 40 degree mark, then a week later we had the fire going again. It had all of us worried that an early start to summer was looming but it has settled down to normal temperatures again and the days are terrific at the moment. A lot of miners have packed up and gone for this year, and with the days getting into the mid 30s now, the rest are getting a little fidgety. I personally really enjoy from now to Xmas time - I have never liked the cold weather much and prefer this time of the year the most. There are a couple of other miners staying until the end of October this year and then I will be on my lonesome here on the field again as usual.

It has just been business as usual on the mining front - I have been continuing on the hole on Gernots lease and have been getting just enough material to keep me interested. My little machine digs to about 18 ft and a lot of the old hands have been telling me that there are two more good producing levels under that, so once I got the hole big enough, I put a ramp in on one side and ventured down. There were three more levels, the bottom one at just over 30 ft but unfortunately they were all dry as chips which was a little disappointing, but the ramp is there now and once I open the hole up some more I will have another look.

There are some very deep levels carrying good opal on Gernot's lease and Gernot made the decision to go after them with the excavator - the levels being at 40 ft, which means there is a mountain of dirt to move. The dirt can only be moved so far each time so it has to be shifted 3 or 4 times to keep it away from the working area. He had to make his working platform in the hole at 30 ft or 9 metres and when he got down there he could only move so much dirt then go back up and pull that dirt out of the hole and keep moving it away to make room for the next lot - a very slow and tedious business with one machine. I volunteered one day to save him coming out of the hole and pulled the dirt out for him - I have a mud bucket which moves quite an amount of mulloch in a short time. Anyway, to cut a long story short, it worked so well that I was asked to continue helping and did so for a couple of weeks. He did quite well in a level at about 40 ft and it was a thrill to be there to see some nice material come out. Gernot has returned to Germany and won't be back until next season, but he will be looking forward to a good one next year now that the hole is open.

An American fellow has a mine that is in an area of Koroit where the levels are very deep compared to the rest of the field and worked underground. Gene has been slaving away underground for a few years now and has been getting some nice material. He has put it to a couple of us with excavators to open-cut a big area, the opal bearing levels are from about 35 to 50 ft so this is going to be one big mother of a hole and a real challenge. I was thrilled when asked to be involved so my own mining has been put on hold again for a while. We have only just started in the last few days so I will take plenty of photos and have an update next post. Gene also has a blog and is much more diligent than I am so if you would like to stay updated on nearly a daily basis, you can check out his blog at http://www.koroit.blogspot.com/

I have been slowly updating the website - with the mining the way it has been and will be for another month or so, finding time is not easy. The idea was to mine in the morning each day and then process, cut and photograph pieces and keep the website and blog up to date in the afternoon - sounds good in theory but trying to put it into practice is another ballgame altogether. Lyn has been helping on weekends when she is here and I have finally got her onto the grinding wheels touching up slices of rough which is saving me a lot of time. I plan to start selling some rough on Ebay as well as I feel this will be a good way to build a customer base over time. The website is a long term venture for me, so I am not worried if it takes a while to build up business but I would hope that by this time next year I will be using it it as a major selling tool. For nearly half a year there are no miners here and therefore no buyers either and it is this off season period each year that I want the website to sell material.

It is getting close now for grandchild number two to arrive and Lyn is getting very excited. She is very good on the sewing machine and I have seen some terrific creations during our early years of marriage but with being so busy with the business at Wanaaring for so long, sewing was forgotten for a long period. The old sewing machine has come out of mothballs now though and has been very busy the last month or so. It is great to see her back at it because she really is very good at it, the quilt cover she has produced for the cot is terrific and I am sure there is plenty more to come. Anyway, I am sure I will be able to squeeze an odd baby photo amongst the mining photos next post.

Photos this time are - the ramp I put in on my hole, a couple of going through the level down in the hole, the rest are showing the progress on Gernot's deep hole from helping move the dirt out to actually digging the level of opal bearing rock and breaking the stone. The last two show Gernot with a pile of stone to break and the results of a couple of weeks very hard work.

www.cooperopals.com - don't forget to check it out!

www.cooperopals.com - check it out!

The old saying " how time flies when your having fun " has certainly applied to the Coopers at Koroit for the last four months since my last post to this blog. We have been coasting along as usual and the year has just flown so I will give a brief update of what has been happening since April.

On the family side the kids are all well - Mitchell and Zara have found themselves a better home to rent in a much quieter area in Toowoomba and seem to be enjoying their jobs and doing what young people do - we have to ring them to say hello so things must be poking along ok! They came out to the camp for a week's break last month - the first time they have visited since we started mining and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. It was great to have a couple of enthusiastic rock breakers around and we got through a fair bit of stone. Zara took to the mining like a duck to water and did a great job and the pair of them got stuck into a few other little jobs I had sitting around waiting to be finished. There was a time when I thought Mitchell and I would never be able to work together but it is amazing what a few years of having to make your own way makes, if I could afford to give them a reasonable income I would have them both here tomorrow - maybe one day!

Tammy,Trent and Bailey are also all well but a few changes are certainly coming their way - first thing being that Bailey is getting a new brother or sister around mid - October and we are going to be grandparents again which is great. We saw them this last week and Tammy is pretty big already - she is only tiny anyway so is all baby at the moment with a couple of months to go. She looks terrific and all is on track according to the latest tests. They have decided to have a home birth - can't say that I am in favour of this, but they know what they are doing and good luck to them. Lyn can't wait and of course will be there to help out for however long Tammy needs her.

The other change for them and a big one for us is that Trent has been given a transfer with his job in the Airforce. They leave for Canberra in January for three years and even though they are moving away from their families, I feel they are quite looking forward to the change. They have already been down and organised school for Bailey and found a defense home close to the school and central to where both of them have to work. I can see that Trent is looking forward to a change as he has been instructing new recruits during his time at Toowoomba and will now be back to actually doing what he has been trained to do. It has been so easy for Lyn and I to visit them in Toowoomba but I am sure we will get down there as much as we can and who knows, we might actually get to use the camp at Diamond Beach a bit more.

We have also had an addition to our family - we now have Milo - a Maltese poodle. Tammy has had him from a pup and up to a year or so ago has been the only dog in the family. Trent got himself another dog and Milo has not been a happy camper since and started to get quite aggressive. Lyn has always been a great favorite with him whenever we visit, so, with the new baby coming along, Tammy offered him to Lyn and so here he is - the new camp watchdog. He has settled in just great - just loves the freedom of having plenty of area to himself and is a great little watchdog - nobody moves within a kilometre of the camp without us knowing about it. I put a door in for him so he can come and go as he pleases. I have never been one for having dogs inside but he does not shed hair - I never new that poodles have wool rather than hair - the only thing now is, he is getting a permanent tinge of red about him no matter how many times Lyn washes him. He spends a bit of time on the excavator with me and it is a mini dust storm when he shakes himself after getting off. He is living out here with me most of the time and the look on his face when Lyn leaves every Monday morning is priceless - you would think the world was coming to an end.

On the mining front, I have continued working over on Gernot's lease next door, and will do so for another couple of months before coming back here. I have got into an area where we are getting some consistent pattern material - not great amounts but certainly some nice colour. It is very hard ground so the ripper has come into play in a big way - the Equaliser is what I call it - if I didn't have it there is no way I would be digging it with a 12 ton machine. I am doing it pretty easy though and reaping the rewards - I think a few of the other miners with big machines are pretty amazed at what a small machine can do and it is a lot easier when mining on your own, which is what I do the majority of the time. It is also more economical and much easier on me not having to climb up and down a big machine all day. I undertook some major maintenance on the Cat in June - took it to town and put new seal kits in all the hydraulic rams and fixed all the other little leaks on it. The machine was away for about a month but I was able to continue on with the old 18 tonner I have. It has no walking gear but is a great old digger and once in place it does a great job - it is a bit slow pulling itself around with the bucket but it is amazing what I can do with it. I was very glad to see the Cat arrive back though!

I have been doing plenty of cutting and the buyers have been coming through so we have been having a reasonable season so far - the buyers have been after the cheaper material due to the state of the world at the moment, but that is fine, as long as we keep turning a little bit over, all the miners are happy. One thing in our favour is that a lot of miners have stopped working due to fuel prices and harder times, so those of us still working are able to sell our rough quite easily due to a shortage in supply.

The other major thing for us is that I finally have the website up and running - it is still in it's infancy and I am still learning how to use it but I am so pleased to see it is now a reality. The major thing for me now is to get some material on it for sale and to keep producing the stones so that there is fresh material going on regularly. I am looking forward to the challenge of making it a success as it should become a valuable asset to the way we continue to run this as a business.The website is http://www.cooperopals.com/ - so have a look and any feedback, good or bad, is most welcome.

Photos are - the Cat in bits / Zara and Mitchell helping me break rock / Mitchell trying his hand on the Cat / Zara and I checking out the level / the hole showing the nut levels / a pile of boulders still to be broken / Milo starting to blend in with the red background / Milo on the Cat with me / he has his own chair / Lyn and Milo at the bore getting water for the camp

We are finally home and slowly getting back to some normality - it is great to be back at the mine and getting used to how quiet it is, believe me, it didn't take long. Everything was fine here at the mine and considering it has been 3 months since we left, it was in good order and not a lot of dust this time thank goodness. What a difference a better season in the area makes as it can be a painstaking job cleaning it all up when it has been a dry summer. We cover all the furniture and beds with old sheets before we leave and that makes a heck of a difference.

So, what has been happening since late Feb. - the camp at Diamond Beach got a face lift for one thing. Lyn picked out the colours to match the pavers - I was a bit dubious at first, but past experience told me to go with it, and yes, it does look great - we certainly think so anyway. We are not happy painters and after 4 days and an aching arm, I was certainly over it. You can see from the photos who had the easy painting jobs. Once it was finished we were able to relax and enjoy the beach even though the weather was against us a little for that ,but we were sorry to have to pack up and leave mid March as we always enjoy it there. We were lucky enough to meet a few more people who also have vans in the park near ours and the weekends were very social. Two couples in particular come up most weekends from Newcastle - Mick an Gail are only two vans down from us and Mal and Jo are just behind them and are ex opal miners from Lightning Ridge, so there was plenty of opal mining discussed over too many bottles of red. Thank goodness they were only there for the weekends and not the whole three weeks - we would have been wanting to come home for a holiday! Anyway, it was all great fun and we are both looking forward to seeing them again next time we are down there.

We stayed a few days with Larry in Tamworth on the way home - as I mentioned in the last post , he and his wife Julie have split the sheets and Larry is finding things pretty tough. He was a lot better than when we first saw him a month before - getting on with life and trying to keep himself busy. The settlement is going to drag on and be pretty messy by the looks of things and Lyn and I feel for them both as they have been good friends for a long time.

After leaving Tamworth, we stayed a night with Pete and Claudia in Moree on the way home to Cunnamulla. Pete and Claude we have known since before we were married and even though we only see them very occasionally, it is like it was only last week we were there. Pete is the senior partner in a law firm in Moree and Claude is on the local shire council, their daughter Sarah also works with Pete, so with grandchildren around as well, they both go at a hundred mile an hour. They have always been the same for as long as we have known them so nothing has changed.

Finally, it was back to Cunnamulla, voted in the state election early, and headed out to peace and tranquility. I spent a few days doing maintenance on all the machines including putting the now leak - free quick hitch ram back on the Cat. It was then back to work - at the end of last year I was focused on finishing a small area and consequently dumped dirt anywhere and everywhere telling myself that I would fix it all up when I got back for the new season - well, that time had arrived and it took me nearly three days of moving dirt before I was satisfied that I could start digging again. I had divined another small area close by last year and decided to dig that area up - it only took a few days but I did find some reasonable opal there so I was quite happy about that. I did have one hairy moment when I nearly put the machine sideways in the hole but with a bit of shovelling - about 3 hours worth - it came out ok. I have to admit it gave me a hell of a fright and was a good lesson learnt when moving around newly moved mulloch heaps. Because I am working there on my own it also reminded me that I have to be more careful, it showed me that things can turn sour in a split second and with nobody else working on the field - well, it would be a long wait if an accident was to happen. Lyn rings me every night to make sure I am still around to annoy her and we have a plan set in place if I don't answer, so eventually somebody would come looking. Anyway, enough of that - nothing did happen and so it was business as usual. I have been spending more time processing the material I have found and intend to continue that trend. There is no doubt that taking the time to value add the material rather than just sell in the rough will be better for the bank account. It means less time mining but that won't matter as expenses of running the machines will be less over the year and that will be a good thing. Setting up our website will be the major project over the next month or so and hopefully that will help subject our unique material to a much wider audience and help on the sales side of the business.

We are heading off to Toowoomba again as Lyn has lost a crown on a front tooth, so, it is off to the dentist. The kids are camping over the Easter weekend and have somehow persuaded us to join them so I will finish this post over the weekend and report on the big camping trip next time - knowing my luck it will probably rain.

The images are - painting the van and annexe at Diamond Beach and a before and after - a terrific sunrise over the beach - moving mulloch and sunrise over how it finished up - nearly in the hole and me cutting some nice matrix pendants.