Opal mining in lightning ridge 1995.

Hi guys, I'd like to share some of my mining experiences I had about 18 years ago. My wife, daughter and I moved out to lightning ridge for three years to hunt opal and try a different life style, it turned out to be the best three years of my life!
I really had no idea what I was doing, but I read someone could camp and noodle on the fields for free. However I was to discover how big the opal mining was and its worth as Australia being the biggest producer.
I'll try and tell the story in some detail as I post some pictures.

We started simple with a caravan under a awning, which gave shade and rainwater! If it rained, for I built a stand for a tank and place my new reservoir ready for clean drinking water. The bore water in town was as hard as sea water, but it didn't rain for 10 months straight. I gave up watching the clouds go by as they teased me, I never want to be a farmer.

Love to here about your adventures up there dez. Fascinating lifestyle up in that region.

Cheers Wal.

Our first real prospecting drive, going under a large fault it took some digging with that little electric jack hammer. I was lent a hoist to remove the waste dirt which piled up on the surface. I found the pile a few months ago when visiting the ridge, and gee it was big and I must say I was proud to see it still there. I went down the old hole to find the roof had fallen down, scary stuff going down 40foot loose and unprotected holes on swinging steel ladders.
I went down a nearby hole and tried to reach this drive but most had fallen in.
Funny that after so long that I remember most of the lay out as I made my way across the field under ground.

The hammer seemed like a toy against the hard sandstone and clay, nearly wore out my young 30 year old shoulder! I bought the same breed of hammer at the markets out there a few months ago and I'm sure it's the same one I used back then

It's called a rickshaw and they work really well! Using your foot you drive it into the pile of dirt and scope and flick it in. Keeping the floor flat and smooth helps, no need for a shovel unless you want a big load. Then just tip into the hoist bucket for its journey to the top.
Oh we never found a dollars worth of opal under that fault

did you find any opal eager to hear more

Sure did richo, will post more tomorrow. Love to share Wal, after reading other stories on the ridge I just can't get the place out of my mind.

Sounds like the dream is still well and truly alive.....you might need to go up and have another stint at it, though the bug probably will never leave the system. Thanks for sharing the dream mate.

Cheers Wal.

good bed time stories

Ratter stories is what I love to hear... Got any?
Barney

Stories of being robbed happen to us all kingsoloman ! 'If that's your real name', but I like to stay on a positive note.

I miss my mining machinery, here is a picture of my blower which loved to eat diesel. A six cylinder turbo running a four foot fan, it made easy work of extracting the dirt. I had enough 10 inch pipes to go down sixty foot then along a drive fifty five feet, she could suck up a piece of solid clay the size of a football easily. Lucky the government gave rebates on the fuel, but I never got a digger to feed it. Or then things would of been fun, we used air hammers that have more punch that electric ones. But always pushing ourselves to keep up, I wouldn't use one again.

This is a German and his digging machine, I wouldn't use one again! Sure they can dig well but hard to get along with
I could fill a book with the stories I heard when out at the ridge, real ones of fortunes found and losted. This guy lived his whole live on the opal field with his wife 'who died before her time' and his two daughters. One of which worked with us and proved as good as any man, I smiled when I hear she is in Alaska now hunting gold.
When he first arrived at lightning ridge in the 1970's he just started digging and came across a very rich run of opal nobbies, every time they needed some money he would go down and pop a couple out with a screwdriver! He felt they were safe in the ground until needed.
Well when it ran out he started digging across the field, most of those tunnels helped me dig around and it was his idea to look under the fault.
He brought a mpl lease to wash dirt into, but the guy laughed at him and told him there was no opal there. Well being stubborn he decided to dig the second level and have a look, well it was full of opal! He could see it in the backhoe bucket when digging. Then he brought in an excavator and dug out two claims, doing very well.
I digress, well here in this picture we worked together as he had given me the claim to scratch around in, and each week I'd show him some nice opal. So we dug a mountain of dirt out and piled it up waiting for rain to fill the wash dam, to start processing it.
We washed something like a 100 big truck loads, each about 18 cubes. For $30,000 of opal. The best stone fell out of the wall and we spotted it, I realised that its not the quantity of dirt but the right dirt that finds opal! Now iv would of dumped a lot of truck loads instead of washing them.
Well when I left him and went back to gouging I found a nice pocket of opal, one three carrot stone of red on black sold for $7000 to mr Chang. He complained for months as the backing was white porcelain and he couldn't sell it.
Well with the $18,000 I found and the $10,000 I got from the German I brought my own hoist and truck and felt like I'd made it as a miner.