cooperskoroitopals

2010-07-01T17:40:00.000-07:00

Yes, I am still in the land of the living - how time flies when your having fun or should I say when your not finding opal which has been the case so far this season. It is July already and this is the first couple of wet days since getting back to work. I haven't done a thing on the website as I have been reminded lately by a few people so that has to change too - opal or no opal!

On the family front there has been one major change - Mitchell is now a Cunnamulla resident. He and Zara have split up after 6 years of living together and he made the decision to move away from Toowoomba and with our urging decided to move out here. He is working in town 3-4 days a week and then coming out to help me for the rest of the week which is great - he is very keen to learn and I will be getting him mining here at the Shallows shortly. He is amazed with his health with the change as he has only had to inject himself once with insulin since arriving out a month ago - in Toowoomba it was every day - incredible what good diet and exercise can do for diabetes and, most importantly, getting away from a stressful situation. I hope he makes a long term commitment here as Lyn and I are enjoying having him around - one thing hasn't changed though - he is still bloody hard to get out of bed most mornings! Otherwise not much has changed - the gang in Canberra are all well and Noah is growing like mad and won't be long before he is up and away. Lyn has settled back into work in town and is flat out juggling her days between the two places she does the books for plus there are a couple of other smaller ones she does in her spare time - I do get to see her now and then!

On the mining front - Graham and I started in a new area on Gernot's lease, an area that there hasn't been too much done and we have found out why - the top 10ft or so is like concrete but we are getting through it. We have moved lots of dirt and there has been some terrific trace with lots of lower grade material - the signs have been fantastic but it just hasn't made good opal. There has been lots of shallow boulder levels and it has been a slow process breaking all the rock, especially with poor results - luckily we have had Gernot's brother, Willy, to help us and he has been a great help ( none of us ignorant Aussies can pronounce his German name so Graham called him Willy and it has stuck ). The levels are deeper than a lot of the rest of the lease with the bottom level being around 24 to 28 ft for a start but that has now stretched down to nearly 40 ft where we are now. This all looks good as we started on the shallow side and are following it down and I am sure we are near the bottom of it now - we can't go any further anyway as we are right on the boundary of the lease. There has been a lot of digging on the next lease and some terrific opal found so things are looking promising now. The thing is we have to move so much dirt to open up a hole big enough to move even my smaller machine around in - the first lift is to 24 ft then it is down into the hole to bench down another 6 ft or so for the 12 tonner to reach the bottom easily. The Mack has been invaluable moving a lot of dirt away but we have had to replace the fuel pump so it has not been working for the last month or so but, it is going again now which will be a big help. We have been getting a few exploratory drill holes put down and they have been very promising with good colour coming from the area we are now at - so, hopefully the drought is about to break on the material front. I was able to start the afternoon just before it started to rain and got some quite nice colour in a level at 27 ft and there is still 10 to 12 ft to go to the bottom - you can see in the last photo the different ground and to us mug opal miners it looks very, very good.

The worst part with not finding any good material is that it just drives you on to finding it and both Graham and I have just kept going non stop - this has not done either of us any good especially when we started nearly a month before any other miners got here and most of them have been getting some nice material since starting. We both have had a bit of a break to recharge the batteries and know that our turn is just around the corner. I know that I have neglected the website badly as well as this blog and that is not helping the cause at all. The worst part is I haven't had fresh material to work with so there has been no processing for the website - Tammy is also onto me looking for more rough parcels to put on Ebay as she has just about sold the lot. Anyway, I feel sure that all will be changing shortly and with Mitchell starting here as well, we will be giving it our best shot. The next blog won't be so far away and will be full of good news - guaranteed!

I have just put in mining photos this time showing from where we started until now.

2010-04-06T13:09:00.000-07:00

It is great to finally be home at Koroit - I feel like Lyn and I have been halfway around the world over the last six weeks.

We were in Gosford when I did the last post - from there we went to Sydney and visited my other brother Andrew, his wife Annabelle and the boys, Nicholas and Charles. We haven't seen them for a year or so and they are all looking terrific and the boys growing like mad. They are very busy with Nicholas now at Scots as a dayboy and both boys into every conceivable sport and juggling it all around work as well. Lyn and I never really experienced that after primary school as both our kids went away to boarding school so it was all pretty easy. We had a lovely few days with them and it was great to catch up over the odd bottle of red.

We then moved over a suberb or two and visited one of Lyn's brothers, Graham and sister in law Anne in Turramurra and stayed with them for a couple of days. Again, it was great catching up with them as it has been a year or so since we have seen them as well. Unfortinately now, the only time all the family seem to get together is for weddings and funerals, so Lyn and I decided that because we only get away once a year we would make the effort to catch up with all the family that we don't see regularly. While we were there with them we visited Mal and Margaret Ferris, a lovely couple we met at the Cliff Richard concert and spent a lovely morning with them - it was great to show off some opal as well. We hope to meet them next year at Tamworth for the Country Music Festival as they are mad country music fans and have never been up there.

We finally got away from Sydney and headed to Canberra to see the kids - this was all uncharted territory for us as neither of us have been to Canberra. We stopped for lunch at Berrima, a little place off the highway and had a job getting away as the history of that little place was amazing. We wandered around there for a couple of hours and had lunch in the pub there - built in 1834 and has the longest continuing licquor licence in Aust - it has been built onto now but the old original stonework and bar has all been restored, it was a fantastic place and we ended up stopping there again on the way back - definitely worth a look if you are going down that way, and a terrific feed as well. Finally got to Canberra and see Tammy, Trent, Bailey and Noah - they have settled in there well after the move from Toowoomba and are in a very nice Defence Force home with Bailey's school only a few minutes walk away. Trent has settled back into work down there and is enjoying seeing some of his old mates as he was originally based in Canberra before going to Toowoomba. He is on shift work now and includes night shift as well - all 12 hour shifts so it has all been a bit hectic for them trying to get into some sort of routine with Noah, but they all look terrific and and are enjoying settling in.

Tammy and I got into setting up the Ebay selling as she is going to do that for me for a while before going back to work. She is pretty smart on all of that and got it all going in half the time it would have taken me. She is also selling other peoples stuff on Ebay as well - that came about from a casual conversation with one of the other mothers at school and she now has others ringing up every day wanting her to sell unwanted items for them. There is a little business in the making there for her while Noah is a baby and child care is scarce. Anyway, we got things going on Ebay with the rough opal and have sold a few lots so far - the main aim in selling on Ebay is to get buyers to the website and that is starting to work already with some enquiries coming in from all over the place including Germany and Switzerland.

We didn't get much time to do the tourist bit in Canberra but the Paris masters artists were being shown at the Art Gallery so we did go and see them - it didn't do much for me but Tammy and Lyn loved it. We will be back down there in October for Noah's christening and I will definitely be spending time at the War Museum while we are there.

It was back to Diamond Beach for a couple of weeks on the beach which we both enjoyed immensely. On the way back we had to make a detour out to the Hunter Valley Gardens to drop of some opal to a little shop there and we ran into some old friends from our early Wanaaring days - Steve and Karen Lofts were there when we first went there in 1985, Steve was the teacher at the little school. It was a great surprise and we spent a night with them at their lovely spot in the hills out from Clarencetown before heading back to the beach. Steve is still teaching at the local school and Karen is now an accountant with an incredible job with a huge American mining company - they both look great and are enjoying life and we enjoyed our short time with them immensly.

We have made the decision to sell our little spot at Diamond Beach - it is a long way away and we seem to be only spending a short time there each year and we both feel we can have a similar holiday each year here on the Qld coast somewhere - it is a reluctant sale as we both love it down there but the fees are going up every year and it really is quite expensive for the short time we are spending there. We have met some great people there and will miss seeing them each year but life goes on.

We finally made our way back to Caboolture for me to pick up the ute, Lyn headed back to Ipswich to visit her sister Kay for a couple of days. For me it was into brisbane to pick up parts for the Catand other bits and pieces I need for this year. I then went down to see Graham at the Gold Coast and loaded up a generator and a heap of other stuff - I sure had a load to go home with but the six wheeler handled it with little effort as usual. Lyn and I met in Toowoomba and after a monster days shopping for groceries and meat we finally headed home.Milo was sure excited to see Lyn again even though Mitch and Zara looked after him like he was there own.

It was amazing to see the amount of green feed on the way home - being away we missed all the rain and flooding that has happened out west - there was water still laying everwhere and feed up to the fences - it is truly amazing to see how the country out here changes with some constant rain, you just wonder where the seed has come from after years of drought and the place looking like a desert - nature is incredible and I have seen it many times living in the outback but it never ceases to amaze me - it really is something that you have to see to believe. I finally got back out here to the camp - there has been quite a lot of damage on the road and still plenty of water in places but everything at the camp was terrific - plenty of green grass around which is a change but on the whole it was easy to settle back in after 3 months away.

Graham arrived out with a semi load of gear over Easter so we have both been busy doing maintenance on our machines and checking over an old Mack tipper that Graham bought to help us move some dirt - it had been standing for 7 years without turning a wheel so we had a couple of days going over it but it seems to be ok and hope it will do the job. We will be moving the two excavators down to Gernots this week and hope to make a start shortly so by the time I get around to the next post we should have some opal out - that is the plan anyway!

Lyn and I had a great Easter out here with some friends from our Wanaaring days - Mal and Judy Howchin had the Post Office and telephone exchange for a number of years and are now based in Gulgong and are heading off for a 6 month stint on the road around the Top End and called in for a few days over Easter. It was great to spend the time with them and I think Mal just might spend a bit of time up here mining- he wanted to stay longer but they are meeting other friends in Mt Isa and had to head off. It was great to see them and good luck to them on their trip - it is something Lyn and I would like to do and probably will if and when we sell Diamond Beach.

This post has been a little long winded but I wanted to catch up on what we have been doing - we are now back to normal with Lyn busy catching up on her work in town and I will be back into the mining and enjoying the year out here - it really is nice to be back amongst the peace and quiet in my little spot in the bush. The days just don't seem to be long enough though with plenty to do but if I can't get it done today then tomorrow will do - it certainly is a lifestyle that I have come to enjoy.

Photos this time include a couple that Jan took at Gosford when she and Lyn visited their parents memorial and the four of us enjoying a red one night.

At Diamond Beach the resident carpet snake visited quite often and a lovely sunrise over the beach.

Sure had a load on the ute as usual when coming out from Toowoomba and plenty of green around the camp.

Mal and Judy Howchin at Easter and heading off on the road for 6 months.

The Mack tipper that Graham bought out and the machines ready to go to work.

2010-02-22T17:08:00.000-08:00

Here it is the end of Feb already and the trouble with being on holidays is that you tend to put off the things you are meant to keep up with - well I do anyway, but the pressure is on me again so here is an update of what we have been doing since spending Xmas with the kids.

Lyn and I spent New Year with Mum and Dad and brother Michael and his family at Noosa which is a great spot to have a few days. It was great to catch up with the family as we only see them a couple of times a year. Both Mum and Dad are looking very well as they head into their 80's and are both very energetic for their ages - Dad playing golf at least 3 times a week and Mum going for her walks every morning with her mates, ending with the usual coffee break at their favorite spot. Dad had a hip replacement 17 years ago but is still going strong at 83 years of age and still hits a very good golf ball - only hope I am doing the same at his age.

After New Year, Lyn headed back to Toowoomba to see the kids again before Tammy and Trent moved to Canberra then went back to Cunnamulla to continue her work. I stayed with Michael through until the end of the first week in Feb, doing what I have done the last few years for him on his macadamia nut farms. I have put a photo in again to show the process of cleaning under the trees to allow the easier harvesting of the nuts once they start falling. We had pretty good weather for most of the time this year so I had a good run and got nearly all 4 farms completed. It did rain right at the end but the boys soon finished off what I couldn't complete, so Mick was very pleased as the nuts seem to be maturing earlier this year and harvesting will be starting sooner than normal - usually the beginning of March, so they are probably into it as I am doing this post.

It was great to see Lyn back and we headed off down the coast for our usual stint at Diamond Beach near Foster. We called in and saw Graham Paul at the Gold Coast and stayed the night there, spending the time making a few plans for this years mining. It was then off down the coast - me wanting to get to Diamond Beach and Lyn wanting to call into every little place along the way looking for markets and old shops. We got to Iluka that night - about 100 kms down so obviously I lost - nothing changes much no matter how long you are together! The next day was my turn though and we hit Diamond Beach just after lunch on the 15th Feb. It was great to be there again as we both enjoy our stays there a lot - everything had survived ok since last years visit and our big paint job still looks terrific. We had nearly a week there then we hit the road again on Friday 19th as Lyn had got tickets to a Cliff Richard concert in the Hunter Valley at Hope Estate winery on Sat night. We got accommodation in a B&B at Lochinvar not far away and had a great weekend in all with the concert and having a look around the wineries as well as meeting some lovely couples at the B&B. The concert was fantastic to see and Cliff Richard at nearly 70 years of age was truly amazing. I even sold some opal at a shop at one of the many tourist places so that was a bonus and will be a new contact for the future.

We are now at Gosford at Lyn's older sister Jan and her hubby, Peter and will be here for a few days before heading to Sydney to visit more family - Lyn's brother Graham and family and my other brother Andrew and family. It is then off to Canberra to see Tammy and Trent and grandkids - we are both looking forward to this time as neither of us has been to our nations capital. I certainly want to see the War Museum - I have been told it is a fantastic visit.

While we are in Canberra Tammy and I have lots to do as she is going to take over my selling on the internet. Tam want to go back to work but child care for Noah is very difficult to get with the smallest waiting list being 280 - unbelievable but true. She is going to stay home and concentrate on her studies to be a naturopath and offered to do my selling on auction sites for me. I most certainly agreed as Tammy is much more up to speed with the internet than an old miner like me so we are going to give it a go. All I have to do is keep the material up to her but we will give it a good go as many people are selling opal on the web and doing quite well so there is no reason why we can't do the same.

For anyone that has checked out the website, there are quite a few SOLD signs especially on the rough page - yes I have finally been selling some material mainly to Germany and America, which has been terrific. I was intending to have had material for sale on Ebay by now but that hasn't happened, but once Tammy gets going that will change very quickly. I know that once I start mining again it would be difficult to do the internet selling properly as it does take a considerable amount of time. If this works well with Tammy it will save me a lot of time and I can concentrate on producing material for sale.

Graham and I have decided to attack one of the deeper areas on Gernot's lease this year - I was going to concentrate on my own lease but Gernot has put the pressure on me to continue there and so Graham and I will team up as it is certainly easier with 2 machines where the opal level is deeper, we are looking at levels at 35ft and deeper, so a lot of dirt has to be moved. Anyway, we will give it a go and see what happens.

That is about it for now - next post will probably be when I am back at Koroit and hard at it.

I only have a few photos and they are -

- the New Years dinner with Mum and Dad, Mick, Louise and Ali

- Lyn relaxing at Diamond Beach once again

- cleaning out under the trees on Mick's macadamia farms, and

- some great views of one of the Glasshouse Mountains down the rows on one of the farms.

2009-12-29T15:48:00.000-08:00

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.

2009-10-27T15:56:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-09-16T12:49:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-08-12T11:54:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-01T12:41:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-02-24T15:43:00.000-08:00

Two months gone in 2009 already so it is certainly time to update what we have been up to since December.

I spent the last week or so before Xmas putting a bank around the holes and closing the camp down for the next 3 months. This takes a bit of mucking around as all the machinery has to be parked and batteries taken out, also, all the saws, pumps, generators and anything else that could be taken has to be put away in the containers and locked up. We have not had any problems in the past with things being lifted but it is better to be safe than sorry. The quick hitch ram on the Cat has been leaking , so took it off and dropped it into Tuckey to be fixed over the break.

We headed off to Toowoomba a couple of days before Xmas in separate vehicles as Lyn would be returning to Cunnamulla in Jan whilst I would be helping Mick on his nut farms. We stayed at Trent and Tammy's over Xmas while they headed up to Trent's parents at Hervey Bay, but saw them for a day before they left. We had Xmas plus a couple of days with Mitch and Kriszara and Kriszara's little sister, Kim, who was visiting for a few days. ( see images ). It was then up to Noosa to Mum and Dad for New Year. We dropped the ute in at the main farm and just took Lyn's car to Noosa - it is a bit hard parking the six wheeler in a units complex. I have had it in there before but am not very popular with a few of the other residents - the ones that need to get a life. Mick and Louise are renting a unit in the same complex now, so it was great to spend time with all of them over New Year. It was great to catch up with Hayden and Joan Jacka, good friends who have been out to the mine a number of times to help out with a number of building projects. Hayden is a real handyman who can do just about anything and has been a fantastic help at times at the mine. They live at Noosa Waters and are thoroughly enjoying retirement, and it was great to see them both looking so well. Hopefully, they will come out again some time this year, because their is always plenty of little jobs for Hayden to attack.

With the holiday festivities over, it was time for work so Lyn headed back to the kids at Toowoomba for a week before going back to Cunnamulla and work. I started with Mick at the macadamia nut farms he part owns and manages at Elimbah just out of Caboolture. There are 4 farms with a total of 35,000 trees and it keeps he and 3 employees very busy. I give them a hand each year with one job which takes about 5 weeks to do with good weather. The harvest starts early March and with macadamias, the nuts fall naturally from the tree over a period of about 6 months. The harvesting is done about once every two months with a machine that picks the nuts up from under the trees. My job is to clean out the old nut, leaves and sticks from under the trees ready for the first drop of nuts. This is done on a tractor with a broom out the front that sweeps the rubbish from under the trees and a mulcher on the back which then turns the rubbish into mulch. It is a very slow job , done at an average of about 2.5 km per hour, so the days were pretty long. I wanted to have it done in the 5 weeks so spent 10 to 12 hours every day, weather permitting. The first 3 weeks were dry so it was very dusty with the broom going in the front and mulcher thrashing everything to sawdust behind. The last couple of weeks were interrupted at times with rain and that made things much worse with it being dry under the trees and water falling from the trees onto the windscreen - just turned everything to mud so was driving blind half the time.Anyway, it all turned out ok as I finished right on the day I wanted too and Mick was happy to have the job done. The images show the tractor and before and after shots of the trees - it certainly does a good job.

On the Aust. Day weekend the kids all came to the Sunshine Coast for a camping weekend, so I organised them all to come to Mick's unit for dinner.Mick and Louise's daughter, Alex, also came down and it was a good opportunity for them all to see their grandparents, and Bailey, his great Nan and Pop - probably all a bit daunting for him, but it was terrific for Mum and Dad as well and a great night was had by all.

Back on the mining front, Barry had given me the opportunity to peg a lease on an EP he had west of Yowah that looks very promising. He had decided to leave it as he wanted to concentrate on his other leases further north - it was very good of him to let me peg this area as it certainly does look like a good one. I got back to Cunnamulla early Feb and we went out and pegged the lease on the 10th. We pegged an area of about 8 hectares , taking in a hill where the levels are coming out of ( see images ). It was then off to Quilpie to the Mines Department for Lyn and I to put in the application and then back to the lease to write the lease no. on the pegs to make it all legal. It was a chance for Lyn to see the area as well and we wandered around for an hour or so before heading back to Cunnamulla. The lease will take the best part of this year to be approved especially with an election coming up but we have it in the plans for next year anyway, so it won't matter if it is held up a bit. It was interesting that we couldn't submit the application at the Mines Department until Friday which was the 13th , and that has always been a lucky day for us - Lyn was born on Friday 13th and we took over the business at Wanaaring on that day and were there for twenty years. It has made us feel very confident for the future of this lease which we called " Coopers Hill ".

Over the past ten days we have visited old friends at Moree, Peter and Claudia Gall, then off to Tamworth for a few days to stay with my old mate Larry Overton. This was not an easy time as Larry's wife Julie walked out a couple of weeks ago after 39 years of marriage. Larry is devastated and after selling his very successful farms recently and retiring , their is one hell of a lot of sorting out to be done. It is very difficult when we have known them both for so long and I hope we helped them both while we were there. We also got to see Peter and Leanne Grinter one night for dinner, Peter was the cop at Wanaaring for a few years and we became great friends out there and always catch up when we are in Tamworth. They both are going great and how the kids have grown - Taylor wasn't born when they left Wanaaring and she has now all but finished school - how time gets away. It was then off to Gosford to see Jan and Pete for the weekend. We haven't seen them since the China fiasco, and it was great to see them again. They have headed off to New Zealand today so it was great to catch up as they are away for a couple of weeks and we will be off home before they get back

We are now finally at the camp at Diamond Beach and plan to have at least 2 weeks here, doing some painting and mainly relaxing on the beach before heading back to work. I also want to organise a website for the business, so this will be a good opportunity to look into that. More about that in future posts.

Images are - the Cat put away for 3 months break,

- with Mitchell, Kriszara, and Kim for Xmas,

- New Year with Mum, Dad, Mick and Louise,

- the kids visit - Mum, Dad and Bailey - Dad and Tammy

- my mate for 5 weeks and the before and after cleaning under the trees

- Coopers Hill - looking up the hill and from the top

2008-12-17T11:12:00.000-08:00

Yes, I am still around so thought it was about time to put pen to paper - nothing to do with a few people letting me know that they have been waiting for the next post!

All went well with the changes to our beach shack at Diamond Beach - we got the old van out with little fuss, it took longer to clean up all the old rubbish stacked underneath it than anything else - I didn't think so much rubbish could be put in such a small area. The new van went in without a hitch and looks terrific - it was in very good order inside, plenty of space and storage and will suit us for a long time to come. We were a little concerned as to the condition of the van as I purchased it off the net, but we are very pleased with it and it is great to have that island bed. At the same time our paving man was there to put pavers down under the carport and across the front of the block. He did a great job and was very patient with the boss - he was obviously very used to things wanting to be changed along the way. Anyway, Lyn was very happy with the job he did so we are all happy!

After everything going to plan with the van we were really looking forward to the China trip. We got down to Jan and Pete at Gosford on the Thursday and were to fly out on Saturday morning early. Our plan was to stay in Sydney near the airport Friday night to make things easier for Sat. morning. Luckily for us, we were still in Gosford on Friday morning when the bad news came. Jan, who had a lot to do with organising the tour, got a phonecall from the boss of Golf China, our travel agent, to say he had gone into liquidation the afternoon before and the tour was cancelled. There was a mad panic to contact all 30 odd people as most were getting themselves to Sydney that day - Dad had actually just ordered the taxi in Noosa to take him to the airport for his flight to Sydney, so I just caught him in time. We were all bitterly disappointed with the cancellation and it turned out that the boss of Golf China was a big noter amongst the golfing fraternity and had spent our money sponsoring golf tournaments here there and everwhere. The worst part was that because of the liquidation we are having big trouble getting our money back - our travel insurance won't cover it, but, we do have one more avenue and hopefully we will recoup some of it. We have certainly learnt a couple of valuable lessons from it - pay with a credit card and don't stint on travel insurance. Jan has started organising a tour for next year so Lyn will still get to see China.

We had two weeks to kill so it was easy for us, after a few days with Jan and Pete getting over the shock, it was back up to Diamond Beach to enjoy our new camp. Jan and Pete and two of their friends, George and Tosca, hired a cabin at the park and came up for a week. It was most enjoyable, catching a few fish off the beach and a couple of games of golf as well. There was a pod of whales off the beach every day which was great to see. It wasn't quite the holiday we had been looking forward to but all in all, we made the most of it and enjoyed the break.

The last six weeks have been flat out looking for the elusive gem, moving plenty of dirt and digging myself further down. I have been keen to go back to an area where I had drilled up some trace last year, it was at 30 ft and a little out of my reach for a while but I have finally moved enough dirt in that area to get a look at it. The bottom of the hole at present is at about 15 ft or 5 metres, so to reach the level with my small machine, I had to first make a bench to sit the machine on, so first job was to shift about 2 metres of dirt out and then make a ramp down to that level. There was not a lot of room as the photo shows but it was worth the effort - there was a small area where I got some quite nice colour. It didn't last long but I will cut about 70 nice stones from it as well as selling some in the rough - a good finish to what has been a pretty lean year. I have now finished the mining for the year and am at present just filling in deep holes and putting a bank around the main holes to keep the water out. I will not be back until March next year so the few days left before Xmas will be spent finishing the cutting left to do and closing the camp down.

We are going to Toowoomba to spend Xmas with the kids then up to Noosa for New Year with Mum and Dad and Mick and Louise. Mick wants me to help him for a month or so on his macadamia nut farms at Caboolture, then Lyn and I will head for Diamond Beach to enjoy the beach for a few weeks before heading back to work. We really enjoy Diamond Beach in Feb as school holidays are over and we nearly have the park to ourselves, we have tried staying there in Jan but it was packed out and not that enjoyable for us oldies.

I hope everyone has a good Xmas and all the best for 2009 - it is going to be an interesting year.

Images show the changes at Diamond Beach, enjoying good company with Jan, Pete, Tosca and George, the areas I have been mining, some nice stones we have for sale at present and one of our great sunsets to finish the year.

2008-10-07T12:23:00.000-07:00

Summer has arrived early with a few pretty hot days and warm nights over the last few weeks - the temperature getting up to 37 during the days. I love the hot weather and am enjoying the mining, nearly all the other miners on the field have ended their mining season and have gone home. The majority only have basic camps with no electricity on the field at all - it is easy to keep warm with a fire, so once the first couple of warm days arrive, they are all packing up and heading home. I have set this camp up as a home with good insulation and air conditioning so summer is not a problem - I will be staying until Xmas time as usual and end up being the only miner here for a couple of months.

On the mining front I have been working both sites with some success on Gernot's lease. I have had the drill over there again and got good results from two of the six holes put down so have been busy opening up one of those areas. The levels are strong and are all over the place which is a good sign, there has been lots of trace and good potch ( clear opal ) showing, so I am feeling pretty confident that some nice material is not far away - it is a matter of moving the dirt.

The mining will be closed down for a while though as Lyn and I are off on holidays this weekend. As I mentioned in the last post, we are off to China for two weeks on a golf tour and, after having such a great time last year, I am looking forward to it immensely. We don't fly out until the 18th so are heading down to our beach shack to do a few days work with some major renovations to be done. We have a site in a big holiday park at Diamond Beach near Foster - Tuncurry right on the beach and spend as much of Jan - March each year there as possible. Lyn actually bought it on Ebay a few years ago and it is a pretty old camp as the images show. We have bought another van to replace the present one and we are also getting the outside area under the roof paved to make it more comfortable. The old fence is coming down and something a bit more modern and weatherproof going in so, we are looking forward to the change. We probably won't have time to repaint it but that will be a project for next January. The site has been a bit of an eyesore for a while and I know the park owners are pleased that we are finally doing some improvements, not that anything has been said, but when I contacted them to let them know, I could sense the relief that finally we were going to tidy the place up. I will have some photos for the next post after we return from China.

We have both been swinging a golf club on weekends to get in a bit of practise before the big trip. Most of the people on the tour are golfers so I don't worry to much about the competition, it is just a great experience to play on some of the best courses in Asia. Lyn has been showing her usual golfing style by smashing the tops in on some plastic balls she has been hitting in town. I am going to organise a lesson for us both during next week so hopefully that might help her a bit, or get Pete, our brother in law, to give her a few pointers. Knowing Lyn, her poor golf will stand her in good stead to have the perfect excuse to go shopping, especially if some of the other women are non golfers, as there was last year.

The next post will be after we return so will give an update then on the trip. Images this time show where I am mining at the present time showing the levels of stone, Lyn's style with a golf club, our beach shack in its present state, also caught a frill necked lizard on camera but I am not sure whether he was sun baking his tummy or with spring in the air and no mates about, the stick was the next best thing - I will leave it to your imagination.

2008-09-16T12:29:00.000-07:00

It is into spring already and we have had some very welcome rain over the last three weeks. The falls have been spread out and it has been good soaking rain and with the weather starting to warm up, the ground has responded very quickly - it is a welcome change to the dry years we have had to endure lately. On the home front, the tanks are full which means no carting water for a couple of months, and, it has settled the dust around the mine for a while which is a real bonus as the next few months are always windy in this area.

Rain always has some drawbacks in the outback and it has meant that I have been able to do only a small amount of mining during this time. I have been looking for a small excavator for a while and was able to get onto a 12 ton Cat for the right price. The machine has finally arrived and is just what I wanted - being a small machine, it will be very economical on fuel which is a major consideration these days. I have been surprised at how strong it is and it is handling the digging here with ease, so hopefully, with a bit of tender loving Cooper care, it will do the job for a long while to come. It now means I can leave the old Sumo down at the other mine full time and work either as I want to which suits fine.

I have been continuing to get some lower grade material out from the other site which hopefully I will be selling shortly. There are only a limited number of buyers that handle this type of material and they like it in bulk to make it worthwhile to pick up - I have a couple of 200 ltr drums of it now, so time to move it on. It is used mainly for carving and is shipped to China for processing in most cases - the work they do over there is amazing and of course labour is very cheap. The material hasn't been improving to much so I might move to another spot I have been looking at - one thing with not being able to work, I have had time to have a good look around the mine and have targeted a couple of areas that look pretty good - not that I am any expert but it will give me a chance to test the divining ability.

Lyn has been out most weekends as usual, even though she missed one due to the rain but worked through, and came out on the Thursday, so had a long weekend which was great. We are going to China next month on a golf tour, so we spent time organising for that. I am looking forward to this trip, I went on the same trip last year and had a fantastic time. Dad, who is now 82, came last year as well and he is lining up again, as well as my brother, Michael. The trip is organised by Lyn's sister, Jan, so it will be a real family affair this year. Lyn has never been overseas before so is pretty nervous about the whole thing. The only thing I am worried about is getting some practise in as I haven't swung a stick since Xmas, so we both better start soon as the rest of the family are all keen golfers and play very regularly. Dad has been going great guns with his golf lately, he is still very fit for 82 - he and I won one of the rounds on the tour in China last year and he wants to repeat it again, so I better get out and start hitting some balls. I have painted a heap of old balls with luminous green paint and hit them up against the wall down in the hole so I don't have to chase them far and they are easy to find. Lyn hasn't played a lot of golf before so she will be down in the hole hitting them each weekend from now on as well - she hits a pretty good ball if she puts her mind to it.

We had a visitor over the last weekend - my other brother Andrew called in on his way home from Longreach. He lives in Sydney and is an events organiser, he was involved in organising the RM Williams muster held in Longreach last week and it was terrific of him to make a detour and call in for a couple of nights. We don't see each other too often so it was great to catch up - we will see him and his family in Sydney when we fly out to China next month but this was a welcome bonus. He was pretty tired after a full week and still had to drive back to Sydney in one day - a 12 hour trip, so a day off here was what he needed. He has owed me a carton of red wine for nearly two years and it was finally delivered and tested of course - it has had some compulsory aging and wasn't a bad drop either so we will probably share a bottle or two over Xmas as well.

Images show the new Cat excavator arriving and at work, a big boulder found, brother Andrew visiting, and Dad and I playing golf in China last year. I have also added image of a nice matrix nut I found today.

2008-08-24T17:25:00.000-07:00

How time flies when you are having fun - another month gone by so quickly and it has been a busy time.

We haven't seen the kids for a while so decided to take a few days off and head for Toowoomba to visit them and do a bit of shopping. The kids are all well - Tammy and Trent have purchased a new home which is very nice and will suit them for a long time to come ( see photo ).They put their old home up for sale and sold it in three days so they are on top of the world at the moment as they have been able to organise to settle both on the same day so moving will be hectic but easy for them. Dad was asked to help but will be busy that day!!Trent has plenty of big fit mates from the airforce so they can do without me. They both look so well as they are getting into bike riding and are training pretty hard - Lyn was fair into Tammy because she has lost too much weight - I thought she looks great but that's mothers for you. Tammy is very busy at work as she has been promoted to small business manager in the bank - it's great to see her doing so well. Mitchell and Krizara are also going great - Mitchell has just changed jobs and we certainly noticed the difference in him. I thought he was always being unfairly treated where he was but he is very happy at Butler Toyota and it shows. He and Krizara are in New Zealand at the moment with Krizara visiting relatives there and the family getting together for a traditional celebration. Mitchell will be meeting all of Krizara's family from the Cook Islands and was both excited and nervous - haven't heard from him so all must be going well.

I took the opportunity to go down to the Gold Coast to see my old mate Graham - he and his son are involved in the lease next door here and I look after their machinery for them. They are very busy people and so have not been out here for some time. It was great to catch up, but I laugh every time I talk to Graham as he is past retirement age and continually talks about giving it all away and coming out here to chase opal, but he just won't stop. He has now just purchased another truck ( see photo ) so the opal mining has been put back for a little longer, one feels. He has been putting together a great camp infrastructure to move out here, so I guess the longer it is delayed the better his camp is going to be - that's if it hasn't all died of old age by then. I have been looking for a smaller excavator for a while and Graham found a good one for the money I had to spend - he has been working with trucks and earth moving machinery all his life and has many contacts so it was very handy for me. It was great to catch up with him and I am looking forward to the day he finally makes the break.

On the mining front I have made a major move. I have been disappointed with the area I have been mining this year and after finishing the last run, I had decided to try another good looking spot on the other side of the hole. Unexpectedly, I was approached by another lease owner not far away to come and work on his lease on a percentage basis and , after discussing with the boss, I decided to make the move. The lease is one of the original leases worked on Koroit and has produced some great opal over the years, it is a huge lease with lots of unworked ground . It has just changed hands and the new owner, a young fellow from Germany, realises that he will never mine it in a lifetime, so, getting somebody else in is an advantage for him and well as for me. He does not have machinery himself so already has another miner working there with him. Lindsay has been working on the lease for many years with the last owners and we are old friends - it was he who introduced me to opal many years ago, so I know he had plenty to do with me getting the opportunity to mine there. He is a big man with a heart to match and would give the shirt off his back in a blizzard if he thought it would help you. He does everything in a big way and his bbq made from a bulldozer blade is a fine example ( see photo ).

Anyway, I have moved the old excavator and truck over and have been going hard at for a couple of weeks. The ground is a lot harder there and so Lindsay with old " Dino ", his old excavator ( see photo ), opened up a couple of spots for me. Once the ground is open I don't have too much trouble besides breaking the odd pin on the tiger teeth, which is a bit of a nuisance as it can be difficult sometimes finding the tooth - usually falls down the hole and getting it out is another story on its own. I have had some success so far with a fair amount of very saleable material found so am pretty happy at the moment. There has been a fair amount of work done underground and I have already broken into a tunnel about 18ft down. I don't mind finding tunnels - it means there is potential there even though some has been taken out. The old miners would not persevere for long in an area if good signs weren't showing. I lowered Lyn down into the hole to have a look as she hasn't had the chance to have a close look at the way the old-timers mined (see photos ). It would have been very tough work with a pick and shovel and candle for light - no thankyou! I haven't had a chance to sort all what I have found yet, but, when I do I will take a few photos as some of it is very big and very interesting.

Images show Trent, Tammy and Bailey and all the family in front of their new home,Graham with his new truck,Lindsay and his bbq and he and " Dino ", Lyn inspecting the tunnel in the hole and some sunsets taken over the last month.

2008-07-24T16:55:00.000-07:00

What's been happening the last couple of weeks - first things first and most importantly, Lyn is improving rapidly and getting stronger every day. She has been out to the miracle man again last weekend and he thinks she will be fine now but will be another couple of weeks before she is completely back to her old self. I had a good look at the stairs she fell down and it was amazing she didn't have more serious injuries, it was over 4 metres from top to bottom onto a cement floor. At the moment she is looking after that shop while the owners are away at a yearly conference for two weeks and they have barred her from going up those stairs - fat chance of that!

The mining has been progressing along as normal and from the photos you can see I have started the next run along the face. I got into nuts where I expected and they were dry for a bit longer than first thought but thankfully improved to the point where over about 3 days I was able to get some pretty reasonable colour even though the nuts stayed fairly dry. Normally the nuts harden up and are much more solid when colour starts to appear but not so much in this case. I think they will continue behind or back under the excavator as they were looking pretty good in the wall - won't find that out until next run in a month or two. It was great to get some rough to sell as my normal buyers at Yowah have been screaming for material and were very happy when I called them - they took the lot without hardly a glance at it as we have a very good understanding by now. The Yowah Opal Festival was held on the weekend so I was able to deliver the goods to them. It was a pretty hectic week last week because I wanted to cut a few stone as well to display and hopefully sell at the festival so it was mining during the day and cutting till midnight and then starting again about six am. for another couple of hours before back into the dirt. I was able to cut forty odd stones and a couple of specimens as well which always sell pretty easily. I haven't had to do hours like that since our old business days but no wonder I did it easily for 20 years because I enjoyed every minute of it.

The Yowah Opal Festival is held this time every year and the little mining town really comes alive. Miners from a fair area around turn up to display their opal ranging from very elaborate stands to the back of a ute - it is a typical market type atmosphere with all sorts of things on offer and food and bar all weekend with entertainment and a big feed on Sat night. It is a great time for miners to get together and show off what they have been getting and for a number of buyers from all over Australia to have a range of opal in one location to choose from. All miners know that no matter what you think your product is worth you only get what someone is willing to pay so there is plenty of dealing done before, during and after the festival. The old motto of " ask what you dare, take what you please " is part and parcel of selling opal and it all depends how desperate the miner is for cash flow as to whether he or she sells. As you can imagine most full time buyers can pick miners who need to sell and take full advantage of some situations. I had a pretty good day, selling a specimen and a few stones so came away happy. The big show at the Gold Coast is on in a weeks time and I will have all my stuff there with my selling partner so hope to sell a few better stones as more buyers will be there.

For the time being it is back to the grind but we have had a little rain and it also has been windy and cold so I have been catching up on the bookwork.

Images show the face tidied up for the next run, the start of the run, the festival at Yowah on the 2nd day when most were packing up and a specimen I cut and sold at the festival.

2008-07-05T05:35:00.000-07:00

It has been nearly three weeks since my last post - I can not get over how quickly the year is going. I intended to post at least once a week when I started this blog site and will endeavour to get back to that from now on. The last couple of weeks has been a bit hectic because the boss had an accident at work in town and a nasty one at that. One of the places she works at has a storeroom on top of the shop and Lyn was going up to get a box when she missed the top step and handrail and took the express elevator to the cement floor three metres below landing on her side and getting a nasty bump on the head as well. Ambulance was called and he then called the fire brigade to help get her onto a back slab and to hospital for x-rays. Cunnamulla only has one doctor and being a Saturday morning he just happened to be having a coffee at the coffee shop just down the street and arrived to supervise the whole show so Lyn was very lucky there. X-rays showed no breaks thank goodness but she had three days in hospital and was in a lot of pain. Of course I was out at the mine when the fall happened and got the message when I came in for lunch so it was pack up and off to town to visit one very sore, distraught and doped up wife.

We have our resident " miracle man " here, a real bushie who studied acupressure techniques many moons ago and knows more about healing the human body naturally than anyone I have ever talked too. Lyn and I have been visiting him regularly over the years so as soon as she was out of hospital it was out to visit him. Lyn had a job to walk when she got out of the car but half an hour or so later she walked back out much straighter and stronger. Ian soon realised that a rib was out and the cartilage torn on the spine causing the grabbing pain and, using the acupressure put the rib back into place relieving a lot of pain almost immediately - it was amazing to see and a great relief for Lyn. The last ten days has seen her getting slowly better with me being chief cook and bottle washer and plenty of sympathy and tlc thrown in!! She finally got sick of me though and after another trip out to Ian she has now gone back to work and sent me back to the mine to find some opal. Torn rib cartilage takes some time to heal completely so she will be going a bit slower for a while but the old saying " you can't keep a good woman down " certainly applies here because the boss is back.

On the mining front I have gotten busy moving more dirt and have reached a very good level of stone as the photos above show. The level looks like a solid sheet of stone but is actually ironstone nuts packed tightly together - it comes out in a block but once hit with a hammer the nuts separate quite easily. This level so far has been a dry one with only the odd trace of colour right in the corner where the level is cut off by a fault line - you can see in the photos the level being split right in the corner. Another major fault cuts across the end of the level as well and this can be seen by the difference in the ground either side - the ground above the level is more tightly packed with clay looking much different to the blocky sandstone to the right of where the level ends. This side of the fault line is the better opal bearing ground and where I have found most of my opal so far but I can't help following that level just to keep an eye on it. Another major fault line running parallel with the way I am working could change things in a heartbeat - for the better I hope.

I said on my last post I would show some of my cut stones and the process of getting them to the finished product - with looking after Lyn the cutting got put on the back burner but with the first of the opal festivals coming up this month I have to get moving on it. I have a number of stones half done so will hope to show some over the next few weeks. The Yowah opal festival is on this month and plenty of buyers turn up there so I will be working on getting as many stones as possible cut and ready for sale.

The vege garden is going well as the photo shows and won't be long before we are eating home grown goodies.The other photos show the level discussed above and the side of the hole I am taking out at the present time.

2008-06-17T05:44:00.000-07:00

It has been great to see some comments coming , thanks Tom and Blogga. Tom is my auntie Helen but has been Tom for as long as I can remember and we love to catch up when we get to the big smoke. Blogga, whoever you may be, I am just a busted-arse opal miner, not an English professor but I will make an effort to improve my literary skills and I will continue to keep the photos interesting.

This last ten days has been busy mining and I have been getting some nice colour in patches. I have not struck anything fantastic yet this year but I am very positive it will happen soon. I am working along a 100 ft face down to about 18 ft and am near the end of the second run along. Each run is about 10 ft or 3 metres wide and even though it doesn't sound like much it is taking me about a month per run. The dirt taken out has to be trucked away and even though it doesn't have to go far it all takes time when you are working on your own. The first 6 ft has to be gone through carefully so this part is fairly slow then there is a gap to the next level at about 12 to 15 ft and then there is some activity at the full stretch of the excavator so all in all a slow process. When you are out in the sun without a sole in sight who cares how long it takes - I just enjoy every minute.

The boss was out again for a long weekend and we got stuck into the area we were working on last week. I leave this area for when Lyn is here because there are lots of small nuts up to big boulders and it is great to have her up in the truck going through each excavator bucket, she also enjoys breaking them and is very good at it. We went hard at it for most of the weekend and finished the corner of the hole I wanted to get done. It is certainly an area we will continue to look at and I think we will attack it the same way we have been, that way Lyn gets to follow the process of watching the changes in the ground as we go through the levels.

We have had a couple of visitors this week, one being a pelican that walked in - yes, that's right, a pelican that walked down the ramp into the hole, hung around for half an hour or so then climbed up the mulloch and proceeded to wander through the camp and off down the road heading south. The Paroo River is not far from our lease and the pelicans seem to arrive after big rains to feed and I would say that the river is where this one was headed, we don't see many and I am not sure whether this one was young or old but it certainly couldn't fly - I hope it got to where it was going, it certainly seemed to have a plan in mind. It sure was a funny sight waddling down the road.

I have been promising to show some finished stones that I have cut - well, not quite there yet but should have some finished this week and I thought I would show my cutting setup and some stones next week.

Images this week show our unusual visitor and the boss on her " tonka toy ", as requested by a couple of people.

2008-06-07T06:21:00.000-07:00

I can't get over just how quickly the year is going - winter is here already although temperatures have been very mild so far this year. We have had rain at last - 36 mm over 2 days, it was great to see the dust washed off the scrub and the camp and both tanks full again. We have been carting water for the last month so won't have to do that for a while.

I have been hard at it moving dirt but it has been a lean couple of weeks as far as colour is concerned - the ground looks good and there is a very good level at about 6 ft - the nuts are just too dry at the moment but I know it will change shortly. There has also been some sandstone boulders down deeper and these have been showing good promise with blue and green line in the bottom of some - found a couple of pieces worth cutting but the rest I will sell as specimen pieces. There always seems to be somebody turning up looking for those lower grade pieces so I keep everything - they may sit for a while but eventually go.

I have been wanting to take out a corner at the bottom of the ramp on the eastern side of the hole so when the boss arrived out last weekend I decided to put her to work - up on the truck going through excavator buckets and on her own tonka toy - the loader. Lyn is getting quite confident on the loader and is a great help. We have been using the small excavator to give it a run taking the top 10 ft out - the rest down to the clay level at about 20 ft will be taken out from down in the hole. Once this section is gone it will allow me to use more of the eastern end to backfill - again the problem of where to move the overburden to is always on my mind so this will give me a lot more space for a while.

I had 4 days off this last week with the rain and letting the ground dry as well as a trip to town for stores and fuel - diesel is up to $1.80 now and I know a lot of miners are getting worried about the cost of running machinery. I think a fair number are not working this year more so north of us where bigger machinery is used and costs are a lot higher - it is showing by the number of buyers getting around looking for material. We have been able to sell rough parcels as fast as the opal comes out of the ground this year but it is always the way - when demand is high you can't supply it! We are able to keep costs down pretty well here being a small operator so as long as we get diesel money each month we can keep poking along and enjoying ourselves.

I was back to work on Thursday and hit some nice colour during the day - lovely to see, not a huge amount but I was able to put together a bucket and a small lot of nice cuttable pieces for a buyer from Yowah who contacts us on a regular basis. They were straight over this morning so we have diesel money for another month.

I hope to get back into my cutting this next week and rain is forecast again so that will motivate me to back into the cutting room. I have quite a few stones half finished so must get to them soon - with the number of buyers getting around now they are no good the way they are so hopefully I can show a few of the finished product next week.

In the images this week I thought I would show you what we are searching for - the first is a very nice nut and the second a sandstone boulder we found a couple of years ago. The stone featured is a magnificent 24 carat stone I have decided to finally part with and the final image is the area we are mining at present.

2008-05-28T05:21:00.000-07:00

Another week gone so fast - I have been flat out mining all week except for some of the weekend when Lyn was here. We put on a bbq on Sat night when some miners came over for dinner - it is great to get together and have a chat over a beer or two when opal is not the main topic - family, football and fuel prices being the usual talking points. There are a number of different nationalities here on this field and it is like a meeting of the united nations when we all get together but this time we Aussies outnumbered them with only one from Italy and one from Germany - what great company they are.

I have been wanting to get on and explain my mining programme and guess now is as good a time as any but where to start! There are two main methods used here at Koroit as on most fields - open cut and underground. Underground is where the miner works underground using a jackhammer or digger and moving dirt to the top via a hoist or blower ( giant vacuum cleaner ) into a truck and then moving to a mulloch heap - I will not go into the details too much because this is definitely not my game - doing the rabbit thing is not my idea of a good time.

Open cut mining is the only way for me - this is done using an excavator to remove dirt and a truck to move dirt to the mulloch dumps. The ideal scenario is to be taking the dirt out of one side of the hole and after removing the opal bearing nuts dumping the dirt back into the other side of the hole already mined - filling behind as you go. It sounds simple but it most certainly isn't because the dirt you take out just does not fit back into the same area - the overburden or mulloch is the biggest problem for the open cut miner and I would spend a third or more of every day moving mulloch. The biggest challenge is to organise this from the start so that mulloch does not have to be shifted a number of times. There has not been a lot of previous work done on these leases so I spent most of last year trying to organise the hole so that I could dispose of the mulloch as simply as possible - I don't doubt for a minute that it will eventually catch up but hopefully I will get a number of years before this happens. There are plenty of miners who have moved onto leases that have been worked haphazardly with great heaps of dirt everywhere and they have great difficulty trying to work out which ground has been worked and more importantly which is virgin ground.

The name of the game is to find the levels of ironstone nuts or boulders containing opal and this can be the same as the proverbial needle in the haystack scenario. Fortunately we have reasonably modern methods to narrow things down a bit - the main one being an exploratory auger drill. We are very fortunate to have a nine inch drill here on the field so this method is used by most miners frequently - it doesn't always find opal, in fact I have had many holes drilled here and have found colour in only a couple but the information it gives on where the levels of nuts are is invaluable.

At present I am mining from the surface down to a depth of about 18 feet or 6 metres approx. There are a number of levels of ironstone nuts starting from virtually under the surface to 6 feet then another main level at about 12 feet but the levels differ greatly at times so every bucket has to be processed so as to not miss any nuts - patience is the key in this game and it is always in the back of your mind that the nut you miss could be the one you have been looking for all day. The presence of natural faults in the ground play a major role in what is happening with the levels and I will endeavour to explain this as time goes on.

The results this week were ordinary after a couple of good weeks previously but a couple of buyers came by so I was able to sell what rough or unprocessed material I had on hand. The stone has been very dry but I know I am heading toward more promising ground - it is just a matter of moving the dirt. Hopefully I will have some rough opal to show next week and will explain my processing procedure.

Images show a great sunset we had this week, the gang we had for dinner, Lyn breaking nuts and the hole where I am working at present.

2008-05-20T05:57:00.000-07:00

Lyn came out as usual for the weekend all geared up for the vege - garden to be built. Lyn works in Cunnamulla during the week on a casual basis doing the books for two businesses in town - she enjoys this immensely and the extra income doesn't hurt either. After a run down to the property owners cattle yards for some manure, the vege and herb garden came to fruition in an old bath tub and old copper. It was then up to me to put the fence around to stop the goats and kangaroos from cleaning it all up first night. It all came out well and the boss was happy.

Has been a week away from mining this last week. I broke a filling off and was lucky enough to get into our dentist on reasonably short notice so it was off to Toowoomba 7 hours drive away. Our kids both live in Toowoomba so it was great to catch up with them. We stay with Tammy, our daughter, husband Trent and grandson Bailey. Our son , Mitchell and partner Krizara live around the corner so it is family time when we are there. Lyn had a couple of old fillings to have repaired as well so $1100.00 later we were both fixed up and ready to do some shopping which always happens when you get to the " big smoke". Saturday saw me off to watch Bailey play soccer while Lyn did the usual trip to the hairdresser, then we all went to lunch with Lyn's sister Kay and husband Greg coming up from Ipswich. Sunday was a cold windy day but we all went off to the markets after I made contact with a couple of opal buyers who live in Toowoomba. I didn't sell a lot but it is always good to make contact and keep in touch with them.

We did some final grocery shopping on Monday morning and then it was on the road home to Cunnamulla arriving back about 6pm. The shops in Cunnamulla certainly provide all the basic items but it is nice to visit the big stores to get those little extras that you miss. It was back out to the camp today after getting more fuel and some groceries for a couple of other miners.

I will start on the business part next post showing where I am up to with the mining.

Images show the vege- garden being created and the family in Toowoomba.

Koroit Opal Field

2008-05-08T04:24:00.000-07:00

I thought I might explain a little about the area where I mine. Koroit field has been mined at various times since the late 1800s / early 1900s. We have found tunnels on these leases down 20 ft that are only 3 to 4 feet in depth running 40 to 50 feet in different directions from a hand dug shaft. These were most likely dug with candle and pick, the miners most likely laying on their side pushing the dirt behind them - not my way of making a living. Koroit produces many types of boulder opal - the main one being boulder matrix and is world famous for this product. Matrix is where the opal is part of and runs through the ironstone making fabulous patterns and each stone is individual - you don't see two stones exactly the same. The ironstone is exactly that , very hard and takes a very good polish. The opal is found in ironstone nuts - these can be from the size of a ping pong ball up to huge in size but the average on these leases is about two tennis balls joined together and I break them with a hammer as gently as possible - you can't see any opal on the nuts so they have to be broken. As a rule the nuts are found in distinct levels but on my leases here there are no rules - the levels are all over the place, every excavator bucket has to be gone through so patience is the key. Miners do a lot of exploratory work before committing to digging an area and this is usually done over time by simple divining and using an exploratory drill to find levels - if colour comes up from a drill hole then you are feeling pretty confident that you are on a winner but there are plenty of exceptions to this theory. I have had many holes drilled here and it is a great tool for deciding where to dig and though I have found some very nice opal I have had only limited success from the drill holes. There are many different areas on Koroit field and every lease is individual in the depths of opal bearing ground as well as type of matrix opal. These leases I am working are certainly diferent to most on the field and I will endeavour to show them as time goes on.

This might do for this post so will put on some photos of the opal matrix and some other nice stones I have found here.

Tuesday 6th May, 2008 - First Posting

2008-05-06T05:25:00.000-07:00

I have been wanting to start my blog for some time so it is with a mix of excitement and trepidation that I start on my first posting.
My wife Lyn and I live at Koroit Opal Field, we are the the only resident miners on the field, only leaving during the hottest summer months ( January/February ) to visit family and friends.
Koroit is only a small field but has been mined at various times since the early 1900s - there are approx 25 to 30 miners here during the winter months every year, arriving this time of the year and most leaving as soon as the hot weather starts around Sept/October. There are only a few like myself who actually mine opal for sole income - most come for the buzz of finding opal and for the simple and uncluttered lifestyle of living in the outback.
The field is spread over quite a large area - our 2 leases are close to the main part of the field but in an area of their own called " The Shallow Patch ", thus our leases are called " The Shallows " and " The Shallows Extension " ( very original ) comprising an area of approx. 8 acres. The reason for the name is that good opal is found at a shallow depth , it can be found at 2 feet and down to 45 feet. I only mine by open-cut methods, ie - using an excavator , loader and truck to operate our mine.
I have built a simple but comfortable home or "camp" as we call it, ( see photos) using a large caravan incorporated in a steel shed with insulated iron all round. This helps with the excess temperatures in winter and particularly the summer months. I will show more of the camp in future postings as we have put a lot of time and effort into it and are very proud of the results.
I will endeavour to explain my mining programme as it unfolds and hopefully some nice opal from the time it comes out of the ground to the cutting of the stones and the final result for sale.
Koroit produces a unique type of boulder opal and I will explain and show the different types next posting.

Images show camp when first built and main working area on lease.