like to do a quick test we are down in the middle of an open cut and um the service down here is not
the greatest so I hope that this is going to work and I hope you can hear me I've got the
microphone going so if you can give me a thumbs up to say the microphone you can hear me okay
and it's not too much not buffering too much um that would be cool and also um let me know
where you are in the world right now this is um we're in Australia in Lightning Ridge and we have
what do we go what's going on what time we are live right now yes that's correct awesome we'll
give it a couple more seconds it's a 9am that's melinda talking there's melinda right there hello
very cool texas the UK Melbourne California
Iceland whoa Canada Montreal love Montreal been there a few times Netherlands yeah
nice work all right so that's telling me that you guys can hear me nice and clear hunter
thank you hunter that was very kind very cool well we are down probably the largest open-cut
that has ever been dug in in lightning ridge and this was dug in the 80s so it was a long time
quite a long time ago now and it was a partnership of 12 different miners apparently
and they all had all these different claims all the way around and they all joined forces and
mined here now there was some unbelievable opal found here and you can see uh all all of this area
it's now pretty much heritage listed say that they've left it most um open cuts
have to be filled back in and that's the requirements of doing an open cut this one
it's at the top of the three mile hill and we've got special permission to come in so nobody can
just walk down in here it's not it's not legal but the boys lunatic hill up the top they're up there
they go and say good out of their funny munch um they're quite they're quite fun and um they've got
some opal there and you can do some fosicking around the top area with them and they'll tell
you some pretty amazing stories so it's pretty cool now a couple of things about this this mine
is there's two real opal bearing levels and down there like we're on top of a david thank you
we're on top of a pretty much a dirt mullet heap right now but down there i did a video probably
10 years ago of talking about the level and it's all been filled in and caved in now down there but
the best level and where the best color was found down lower
and over here there's another second level and you can see kind of see this is there's
a there's a level there that's the sandstone um that goes up up top there and then down below
it you got sandstone going down down down until you get to about there and then that is the opal
bearing level all underneath so if you have a dig around there you you possibly could find some opal
so that's pretty cool someone asked would you prefer open cut mining or underground
would i prefer there's a question would i prefer open cut mining or underground um
underground mining you have to do tunnels you have to do a lot of preparation so that you don't have
cavings and it can be very costly to do that but open cuts also is very costly to move the dirt
because you have to move so much dirt above you to be able to get to the level so it's a
much of a muchness and i think if the ground is really rich with opal open cutting is so good
but if it's not and it's pockety and you have to take a lot of dirt away to find that opal
then it's probably not the best way to do it you're best off doing drives underground
and i'm moving less dirt so there you go
any other questions there
i only buy now i used to dig a while ago but not not anymore i just come up and i see my friends
and other miners and um they show me what they got and then i buy and we cut them all together
you and me together it's good it's good fun how thick is the bearing how thick is the opal bearing
level good question um depending on where you are in um in lightning ridge or any opal field
the opal bearing level can go from you know four or five meters to uh to like half a centimeter
it just depends and sometimes you can get tiny little thin veins of opal um in well that's the
level between two lots of sandstone so it can change and vary and it goes in and out and all
over the place and uh yeah it's um there's no real set level and you can also have three or four
levels uh one below the other so finding out which level that opal is sitting on is probably the
hardest part so yeah and um we were freezing this morning and we come down here and now we're really
warm so we're all got thermals on we're dying of heat what's the question are there any chemicals
associated with opal mining chemicals no there's just diesel being used in petrol to run machinery
and the machinery then moves the dirt and then the dirt gets washed with water so you know no
chemical no chemicals are used at all and once everybody once they've you've mined out a mine
you have paid a bond to rehabilitate that land after it's been mined so you have to fill in the
holes and re regenerate the trees on top and and try and get it back to the way it was the way you
left it so someone wants to know how old this mine is well this mine how old is this mine um
it is like this is this was mined in the 80s and it was started out with shafts and they realized
that it was so rich in opal that they decided to open cut it and found a lot of opal here really
a lot of opal what was the name of the haley's comet I think was found here and if you google
hayley's comet you'll see um you'll see one really big piece of opal um i think i'm not sure don't
quote me i think it was sold not long ago for 9 million so tj's driver training nice work thank
you you're gonna have to teach me how to drive because i'm not a good driver am i a good driver
it's more gratifying finding color coming out of the washer or cutting a gem
the question was what's more gratifying having colour come out of the washer or
cutting a gem and i would have to say the most exciting part of the whole process
is colour coming out of the washer out of the out of tumbler and spraying out onto the tray
when that's when the first sign of seeing that awesome color you get to you get to decide whether
you actually found some money or not and that is the most exciting time me cutting the opal
i gotta say that's when you find out whether you've got a gem or not and so that's just as
exciting but if i were to choose what i would like i would like to see rainbows coming out that shoot
that's that's probably the most exciting time for me so uh yeah i don't get to experience that as
much as i used to but some friends say come out we're having a tail out we'll um have a
look now i just want to let you guys know we're in lightning ridge um filming we're doing some
shoots for a new jewelry range and stuff so we've got models hired and all sorts of stuff going on
and we're making a video as well so in a few weeks time you should be you should see a video of
of what we're doing in lightning ridge and um that's going to be fun so stay tuned for that
and if you haven't subscribed please do that would be awesome i want to know if it's safe
for them to come out here by themselves if they wanted to get open
okay so the question was is it safe to come out here by themselves by yourself to look for opal
most of the areas that are like this have signs saying do not enter um this is a mine safe area
so um you if you were to enter you'd be breaking the law and um and you're entering at your own
risk to fall down a shaft or something could go wrong there's lots of machinery out here um and
debris on the ground so you just got to be really careful and i wouldn't i wouldn't come out here
by yourself but you could come fossaking if you know people here fossaking is quite a fun pastime
so that's probably something that you would like to rather line up with somebody who knows
lightning ridge but just to come out here and go forsaking in areas where you don't know uh if the
if the opal or the dirt you're allowed to foster or somebody might own that dirt
you may get in a bit of trouble and if you do start stealing other people's opal then
i won't go there not good it's not good what's your favorite part my favorite pattern is a
mixture of flagstone and chaff pattern and that comes from this dirt this dirt here is the silica
rich dirt that creates opal over 100 million years and there's nothing like this place i love it any
when covert opens up the world again and you want to take a holiday come to lightning ridge because
seriously you will enjoy every second it is the best place on earth i love it so much
and every every time i bring a friend or people out melinda brought her boyfriend out here and
he loved it and he was spewing he couldn't come this time everyone who comes here i love
it absolutely love it someone wants to know what the wildlife and bugs and things are like out here
okay so what kind of wildlife do we have out here we have the one of the most or two of the most
poisonous snakes out here in the world they're we australia has the top 10 most poisonous snakes
on land not on not land and sea the sea snakes are more poisonous but we have a
taipan here and we have a brown snake and the inland taipan is probably the most
poisonous snake in the world that lives on land so yes we have them we have kangaroos
there is a massive colony of koalas out here you wouldn't believe it but there is and
you'll see echidnas everywhere and reds red kangaroos grey kangaroos there is a
little lizard called a shingle back lizard and it looks like a pine cone and the little
locals call them a bog eye because their head looks like their tail and they look like a bog
they're brown they're beautiful little lizards with very very powerful jaws and
they eat snails bananas and all sorts of things like that yes lunatic hill David that's correct
we are at Lenin oh so okay so the question is what is fossicking and fossicking is scratching around
in other people's dirt that had they have dug up from the opal bearing level to find some opal
and if you have permission to fosick on that land then you have a chance of finding some opal
if uh if you don't have permission then you might be doing something wrong so fossicking is
scraping through the tailings of somebody else's mining and to for the chance of finding some opal
there you go will we be selling men's opal friends with the new collection
the question is um is where will we be selling men's opal rings um in the next collection and we
already have two and I think no the new collection is all is there feminine yeah it's all feminine
there are more designs coming, Ruth is um in the process of making more so
uh we will be making some more nice stuff
the life cycle what is the life cycle of an opal well it's it it's formed here with this silica
rich dirt and the rains right pour into the ground seep through the earth and find crevices cavities
fishes underground and those silica spheres slowly fill up those cavities and um and over 100 million
years that turns into opal now you just got to be lucky that that opal turns into play of color
now every continent on earth has opal or silica in that kind of form but to have it form with
play of color like it does in australia and some other countries is very very rare and that's what
makes it a gem is because of that play of color so that gets found by the miner the miner then
either cuts it or sells it as it is and then opal cutter will cut it and then it gets sold to
jewelers and other people and people like you and then you get it set and that's pretty much
the life life cycle of where it comes from here and then once it's in your family then it has
another whole story again which is i reckon the coolest part do you have any claims yourself
i have no more claims myself the question was do i have any minds no
i don't have any anymore i sold the last one a few years back so yeah we live on the coast
now and i come up here every so often um to see all my mates and it's really really cool
so up there from lunatic hill has it just frozen oh i think we almost
yeah i think we just cut out so what's going to happen down that way there's two guys from the
um they're actually mining they're having a bit of a scratch around but when we walk down
there we're going to cut out because there's no service as you go further down into the
mine so what i'm going to do is we're going to make our way down there and when we do cut out
we will stop this video and i'll start recording it so that later on today i'll upload
what we saw down there and and these guys so if that works um let's just hope
it all works well but i'm pretty sure we will cut out when we start walking so
i will say goodbye now but we're gonna still keep going until it cuts out so
um i hope you enjoyed that and there is more to come today so you will see some more okay
all righty we're gonna make our way hold it yeah all right there we go
beautiful
here let me grab that off here I'll carry it with us gotta take
your water bottle you gotta stay hydrated out here watch out for the rocks so there are two
guys I don't know if you can see them but there are two guys sitting over there on the rock oh
thank you that's very kind so there are two guys just sitting over there on the edge and they're
having a fossick wacky guys love them they're really cool and they're the guys that are up there
meeting tourists and having fun and they got some opal there sometimes for sale as well so
definitely go and say good day to them let's go and see if we can say g'day
hey boys
cutting out slowly we're losing it