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