Peters Story Part 26
The Last Claim I had just finished the exhilarating task of digging out a large pocket of exquisite opal from our Prize Fighter claim. It was towards the end of the year and I was on an absolute high. Not …
Australian Opal and Gemstones
Peter’s Story is a series of articles written by Peter for a magazine called Metal Stone and Glass. The magazine is published every 3 months and to be fair to the magazine, the stories will appear on the web site shortly after they are published.
The Last Claim I had just finished the exhilarating task of digging out a large pocket of exquisite opal from our Prize Fighter claim. It was towards the end of the year and I was on an absolute high. Not …
The prize fighter claim – Part 2 I felt on top of the world and digging out breathtaking opal in our newly named “Prize-fighter Claim”. The opal seam was becoming wider by the day and there was some wonderful opal …
The prize fighter claim Stafford owned an investigator drilling rig and had been grid drilling a claim he owned beside a successful finished claim. This claim had produced quite a large amount of opal and was in a productive area …
The Bits and Pieces claim We had just found an incredible pocket of black opal in our Jet Black claim and I was still on a high. I had roughly faced a couple of stones at Mintabie and the result …
The Jet Black Opal Claim I was feeling intensely excited and keen to get back to Mintabie and start work on the Jet Black Opal claim. I had a good feeling and as a lot of miners will tell you …
Return to Mintabie Mintabie is a long 3 days drive from Canberra and I swear crossing the Hay plain that every blade of grass, every salt bush and the three trees on it had not changed since we crossed last. …
My Life in Turmoil My life, now in a perceived state of upheaval was in turmoil. I was feeling totally insecure with our permanent return to Canberra. With our mining days at Mintabie finished and all bridges burnt, with the …
Finding the Balance Running my shop ‘Mineshaft’ and being a full time opal miner made my life very busy. Somehow amongst all this I had to juggle a marriage and spend time with our young son Michael. There are periods in …
Preparing a New Opal Mine We had bottomed on opal at our new grasshopper claim and were really keen to go down and dig it out. This might appear a ‘ready set go’ procedure but the fact is there is quite …
A Comfortable Routine My life had developed a certain comfortable routine over the time we had been mining at Mintabie. Whilst in Canberra I would run our business and around Easter, when the weather cooled, we would drive the 3000 …