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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

www.cooperopals.com - check it out!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.