Peter’s Story Part 27
Mintabie Revisited
A few years ago, my then wife Marianne, myself and our twin boys Jack and Ethan visited Mintabie.
It was the first time I had been back in over twenty years. I needed to show them where I spent many years of my life mining and where our special pockets were found. I wanted to see, perhaps for the last time, our old claims and what they looked like today. Maybe I could find some shafts or drives I had dug so many years ago. I wanted to catch up with a few of the old miners who were still there and were part of the crazy days when Mintabie produced vast quantities of high-quality opal. I needed to talk to them about those times and the opal they discovered….. and I think I needed to say goodbye to the way Mintabie was.
This story is dedicated to Mintabie and the fellowship of miners who were part of the colourful history of one of Australia’s premier opal fields. There will be a little reminiscing as well as true factual stories from a couple of the old miners.
We arrived in Mintabie on Thursday 28th of October 2017. I still had that nervous anticipation I used to feel every time I drove over the last ridge and spotted the white opal dumps on the horizon. I could almost sense Peppa the mining dog doing cartwheels and whimpering in the back of the car as she used to do at this exact spot. Only this time it was the desire to share my experiences and excitement with Marianne and our boys.
Driving to the water tank I wanted to see the area where we had three claims close by. We called these our “water tank claims” and worked them for several years. It was underground mining, all hand shovelling with hundreds of meters of drive and memories earnt with blood, sweat and tears. Several pockets of opal and some lovely gem quality opal was found. Imagine my surprise when we arrived to see a giant bulldozer cutting part of our old claim. I walked down to talk to the miners and introduce myself. They knew who I was and told me they had broken through the roof of an old ballroom (A large opened up area where we had dug out a pocket of opal) The bulldozer had dropped partway through the roof just a few hours before. I felt strange and privileged to be there and able to look down on an area that had given so much excitement over thirty years before. The miners would soon be working the main level and had a lower level to go below that. I wished Nick, Sheena and Mark the best of luck and hoped they would find a pocket or two of beautiful opal. They deserved it.
We drove around Mintabie as I tried to identify where our old claims would have been. In many cases it was impossible as the whole area has been bulldozed. Nevertheless, I could point out where they once existed and reminisce some of the adventures in context to the field as it was then and now.
It rained all the second day when I was trying to locate more of my old mine sites. I remembered the time I connected a water tank to the roof of the camp to collect rainwater. It took over a year for enough rainfall to get water flowing from the tap.
Marianne was able to spend an hour or so between showers noodling over the top of what may have been the area of our first claim (Spooky’s claim – named after Spooky a strange man who kept to himself and lived in a rough lean too canvas ‘tent’ on what was our claim.) She managed to find a nice piece of black opal which I cut, and she now has a pendant to wear with an opal she found. I like to think it was a piece we missed from our first mine. This whole area has been bulldozed and was now a field of mullock.
I recall going to the pub the day we pegged Spooky’s claim and being asked where we were working. When I said we pegged Spooky’s camp the miners laughed and said “Don’t waste any time prospecting – just head straight under Spooky’s tent and dig there. The bastard will have been sleeping on top of it. Six weeks later we found our first pocket. 3000 ounces of opal AND Spooky had been sleeping right on top of it! We were never able to tell Spooky. He had been taken to Adelaide hospital and as far as I know never returned to Mintabie.
We spent a couple of nights in the pub talking to a few of the old miners including Milan (RIP), Sarge (RIP) and Bruno. (Milan, a very charismatic opal miner, is attributed with starting the major rush indelibly putting Mintabie on the map in the 1970’s. You can read all about him in Len Cram’s opal book on South Australia). I could see the magic look of satisfaction when he pointed to the location of the bulldozer cut where he had found the first large pocket of opal. Sarge, a close friend during our time at Mintabie had found a lot of opal and he talked about his amazing rainbow pocket from Grasshoppers but more of that later.
Bruno was a hard-working hand miner who although found some beautiful opal never managed to find the mother lode (Bruno was always in charge of cooking at the Progress barbeques and if ever there was an expert in cooking on a spit, he would be amongst the best). Sitting on his stool behind the bar in his famous pub was Luka, joining in the sessions and topping up the drinks. As with most publicans Luka could keep you entertained for weeks with stories on opal finds and colourful characters who have drunk at the bar. I am sure he has countless confidential tales from those early crazy days.
I wanted to show Marianne where Kim’s bright red tomato pocket was found. Kim was a mining partner with Robert and I for many years. He was a dreamer and would entertain us with various interpretations of these to help us find opal. On the way to the mine so many years ago he told me he had dreamed about diving through crystal clear water and picking bright red tomatoes. When we went down the mine to check our last blast, we discovered it had broken through to a drive done by the previous claim owners. They had given up the claim and not bothered to check the dirt from their own last blast. That blast had reached a seam of vertical opal. The opal had fallen off the wall and lay on top of the blasted dirt. Our own blast had blown a small connecting hole and when we peered through, we could see many pieces of bright multicolour gem opal lying on top of the dirt. A wonderful pocket of opal was found. I smile whenever I think of Kim’s dreams. The whole area was bulldozed years ago and I could only point out a very rough location.
When we went to Grasshoppers it was the same situation. I could roughly point out where the claims once were. The whole area in every direction had been bulldozed.
Robert and I put down the first shaft sunk on this field. Lenny Butts drilled it and bottomed on opal. Although not top opal it did have colour and it took us several hours to noodle the dirt from the Caldweld drill hole. Lenny had gone straight to the pub and told everyone he had just drilled up the best opal Mintabie had seen for years and if they didn’t believe him, they could see us picking up the opal. Within hours the whole valley was pegged (Of course this meant Lennie would be required to drill many more holes and his income was secured, at least for a while).
Originally it was Sarge and Ken who found the first few pieces of quality opal whilst prospecting with their Investigator prospecting drill. He had rung me in Canberra the night after they drilled the opal. Robert and I instantly hurried back to peg claims. We started work as fast as we could and in a strange way helped start the rush to Grasshoppers. This was the last major field to be discovered and probably the richest. Large quantities of high-quality opal was mined from many claims and the field was extensively worked for several years.
Sarge however didn’t start their mining for several weeks. He had a couple of young fit guys do the mining and it was one of these guys who first told me the story of their rainbow pocket. The opal on the claim was predominantly seams of vertical opal running parallel across the claim every few meters. Most contained lovely precious opal. They were following one that split in to two with the second looking like it may possibly continue a small distance away and run parallel. They kept following the closest one, leaving the second for later. After finishing with the first vertical, half sticks of gelignite were placed in the side of the drive, at regular intervals and the length of the drive. After setting off the blast they were left with an incredible sight. The dirt had fallen off leaving a seam of vertical opal hanging on the wall and the full length of the drive. Running along the seam they could see a section, over a foot in width, of a pastel-coloured opal rainbow showing the full spectrum with red at the bottom. They pulled the opal down with picks and the opal was magnificently beautiful and quite thick. Many buckets were filled and by all accounts the pocket was truly remarkable and special. This story deserves to become part of Mintabie folk law.
Robert, Kim and I had found a couple of seams of vertical opal with this phenomenon on Kims’ claim situated on the Old Field several years before, so I was able to imagine the beauty. Our opal wasn’t thick, but the rainbow was perhaps 30 cm wide and stretched about five metres along the drive. The rare sight is one of nature’s best and guaranteed to make any miner’s heart beat faster.
Mintabie produced some incredibly special stones. Most miners will tell you about the one they found. With foggy eyes and perhaps the hint of a tear. They don’t need to embellish their recollection, and I bet the opal was better than the picture they are trying to paint.
Bruno in the 1970’s was talking about such a stone in the pub. I was standing close by and although not part of the group I couldn’t help but hear his description. Bruno was a small nuggetty miner. His voice was large and loud (particularly after a drink or two) He was describing his opal in poetic flowing terms. Banjo Paterson or Henry Lawson would have been proud of his words, and I can’t pretend to do his description justice.
He called it the most amazingly beautiful thing he had ever seen. “Fierier than a sunset. More colourful than the most magnificent rainbow. More beautiful than the prettiest woman”. The accolades continued for some time and left me believing he really had found something special! It stuck in my mind so after all these years I asked him about it. His eyes glassed over, and he thought about this beauty for a while and then allowed me to share it with him. “Yes, it is true! It was a special stone. You could hold it in the corner of the pub (where we were sitting) and from the door (perhaps ten metres away) you could see the flashing brightest red colour flowing over the black background as strong as the sun burning. “It was slightly less than an ounce but such beauty you would never believe”. After a few minutes silence I asked him what happened to it. He said, “I sold it. I had to, I’m an opal miner and I needed money. It sold too cheaply.” With a look still hanging in his eyes from this long past memory we shared another wine.
I arrived at Mintabie before the main rush started. I saw the town develop, experienced the mayhem, excitement and contagious optimism during the growth. I felt the mental plateau as the good ground began to run out and the miners were worrying about their future. I left just as Mintabie started its decline and the production of opal began to plummet with the inevitable end of an incredible chapter of Australian opal mining history. It changed my life, and I am thankful for all the adventure and experiences.
There are so many stories, some to be told and some that can never to be. Mintabie is ingrained in me.
I was going to list a lot of the miners I knew and were important to myself and Mintabie’s history but can’t. It would not be fair to those inadvertently left off. To any of the miners who read this….Thank you for the memories. We belong to a special club. It will be a long time, if ever, for another opal field like this one to be discovered.
