- When you find opal,
it's an adrenaline rush and it can be addictive.
I'm Desrey Jones.
I'm born and bred in Coober Pedy,
the opal-mining capital of the world.
I am one of the very few females involved
in the mining industry here.
My mom and my dad both have been in the mining industry
ever since I was young,
so I've been around it basically my whole life.
Opal was formed millions of years ago.
125 million years ago, this was all an inland sea.
Soluble silica gets into cracks, solidifies,
and it creates opals.
Coober Pedy is really remote.
We're in the middle of Australia,
so the closest town is Port Augusta,
which is about 500 kilometers south.
The opal was discovered here in 1915
by a young boy, Willie Hutchison.
From there we had settlers coming in,
and mainly men coming here,
trying to, you know, strike it rich with opal.
Aboriginal people were transient through here.
When the white man came here,
they saw them burrowing into the side of sandstone hills
and that's where we got the name,
"white man in a hole."
So I was one of the last female babies to be born
in Coober Pedy in 1980.
With the majority of opal miners and workers here being men,
it can be a little bit tough
being a female in this industry.
There's not a lot of ladies out here,
so the ones that are here, we all know each other.
It's not just exclusively for men,
women can do it,
as long as you don't mind working in some tough conditions.
You are your own boss at the end of the day
and you can go out when you like, come back when you want.
It's a little bit of hard work,
but I think that might be a little bit of a reason
why so many people would be leaving.
So we've got half of our population that we used to have.
I think that might be because of the gender,
there's a lack of females here, definitely.
We live in underground homes,
which we call dugouts.
So we dig into the side of sandstone hills
with the same machines we use to dig for opals.
About 70 percent of our population lives underground
'cause of the temperatures.
So it can reach from the 40s to the 50 degree mark.
Underground it stays between 21
and 24 degrees all year round.
Everyone's involved in the mining industry somehow,
whether they're mining the opal, buying the opal,
or selling the opal.
We're all kind of involved in it in some way.
You do tend to get a little bit lonely here in Coober Pedy.
You see the same faces every day.
There's not a lot of chance to meet new people
which is something I do miss,
but at the end of the day, Coober Pedy is where I grew up.
It's where my family is, it is my home.
So I'll always love it for that.
We sell opal in the rough per ounce.
Depending on the quality if, it's really, you know,
great quality, you can get, you know, 300 an ounce.
But then you will sell it for that.
And then you might get, after it's been cut and polished,
you know, a couple thousand per karat.
You know, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I suppose.
If you like something, you're gonna pay for it.
So when you see it in the wall, you sell it.
You might be able to retire on the money, like my dad,
but he's 72 and he's out there mining still.
Mining is like gambling.
You could go out tomorrow and find a million dollars.
You could be out there for two years, and find nothing.
So I hope to strike it rich and find that, you know,
those million-dollar finds, but yeah,
I hope to find it while I am young and not too old.