- What it's like

Cunnamulla / Koroit, QLD - Australia

When I first bought the opal mine in 2001 I was naive, ignorant and very inexperienced. Yes, I'm very bright, but I was doing something brand new in a very strange environment.

For a variety of reasons, when I first started mining, I decided to mine in a particular area toward one side of my mine. During that season a miner who works a mining lease next to mine decided he was going to dig along the border at the opposite side of where I was digging. A few times I went down in the tunnel my neighbor was digging to see what he was finding, but since it was on the opposite side of where I was working, I did not visit often. To me, the tunnel he was digging appeared to be very close to the border, but estimating where you are underground is tricky, particularly for a beginner. He was a very experienced miner. I did not want to bother him and I figured he knew what he was doing.

While my neighbor was digging in that tunnel he got lucky. He found a beautiful opalized log which he sold to another Koroit miner for several thousand dollars. He also found some other beautiful material.

As some of you know, last season, two other Koroit miners with excavators came to my mine and dug a large open cut. When digging tunnels underground it can be hard to tell where you are or what direction you are digging. When you do an open cut it opens up everything to be seen clearly - there are no doubts. You probably can guess the punch line . . . that tunnel my neighbor dug several years ago, supposedly along the border on his side of the line, was actually completely on my side . . . not at all along the border, but clearly, by at least 5 feet on my side.

Earlier this season I mentioned what we had found in the open cut to my neighboring miner. Based on his rather confused kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar type response, I am led to believe he knew exactly what he was doing and where he was digging the entire time. He knew he was taking advantage of the new guy.

At the end of the season several years ago when he mined that very nice opalized wood, he sold that other material he found to me for $7,000. The opalized log has since been bought and sold a few times. Last year it appeared at a show in Tucson with a price tag of probably over $50,000.

That's what it's like to be an opal miner . . .

Over the weekend I spent some time crawling under a 40 ton excavator to help tighten several nuts while various excavator fluids dripped on me and I had to duck as the grunting and groaning beast moved just above my head.

Now the excavator is back to digging. Hopefully some treasure will be unearthed before the end of the week.