Early miners had to be self sufficient and adaptive. Often spending months at a time working their claims, they caught or cultivated their own food and took care of any medical emergencies or illnesses they suffered.

Many worked their claims for decades, with little to show for their efforts aside from the scars they inflicted on their bodies while digging.

Distrustful of anyone who might jump their claim, these miners were a secretive lot who might boast that they'd found a spectacular vein of opal, but who never offered details of its location. Often, these miners hoarded the stones they found, only bringing a few to market when they needed cash for food or supplies.

When an old timer died, it could be months before anyone discovered his body and buried it. And, the secrets known by that miner--such as where he'd found a rich vein of opal or where he'd stashed the opal he'd found--often died with him.

"Des" is a mate of mine who has gone over some of these old mines and turned the area into an open cut. The last time I was at his mine, he had a whole stack of timbers laying around his camp, that were used as props down under the ground in the old mines. Some of them were only about four foot high indicating that the old miners literally crawled along underground in search of the precious stone.

Des' mine produces a very hard highly polished Queensland Matrix opal. He is finding a considerable quantity of it at this time and I have some in my posession. In fact I have just set an exceptional "picture" stone from his mine in an 18ct gold pendant with accompanying diamonds. The piece is selling at $4000 (Aus) and last time I saw him he had a bag full of stones like this. So the days of the "opalrush" are not over here in Australia. There is still a great potential to find many more of these unbelievable and rare stones found only in the Outback of this great south land.

Though not a miner himself, my mate Dave often visits us at the mines. He's pictured here at the Yowah opal fields in Queensland, where bulldozers and backhoes as primary tools of used to remove the mullock covering the potch and opal at these open cut mines. Usually, the opal at Yowah is found in thin veins. Unique to the Yowah fields are the Yowah nuts, which are highly sought after by collectors.

My mate, Roger, me, and our families sometimes live in a Shearers camp. As the name suggests, a shearers camp is generally home to shepherds and those who shear the wool from the sheep. These seasonally occupied camps often have a number of simple living quarters located close to the building where the actual shearing is done. This particular camp is conveniently near the Karoit boulder fields in Queensland. Like the Yowah fields, the Karoit fields often yield small bits of opal.

Just because the miner's tools have improved doesn't mean his luck has.

My mate Dave appears in the foreground with Peter Hunter and his family at their mine. Mining is a bit dangerous for kids, we thought, but Pete's children took it all as a day's work and were very obedient when working the family's mine.

Pete's family worked hard for about a year, but did not make good.

Julian is only a young bloke, about 18. He is shown with Peter Hunters family outside a mine at Lightning Ridge. Julian worked on and off at the Ridge for a year or so and is looking forward to going back.

He is currently working with his father, artist and photographer Graham Lees, doing art work. They are planning to produce a series of original artworks of the Ridge as well as photographic art.

Now, I realize that many of the modern miners don't fit the stereotype image of what a miner "should" look like. Des perhaps comes closer to what you might envision when you think of a typical miner.

By the way, in case you've been wondering, the mining community is sufficiently small that most miners go by their first name, or a nickname they've picked up along the way. You might know a miner for years before ever learning his surname.