White Cliffs: Pt 177, April 11^th…(Pictures)

So, ignoring the fact that the trailer was dirty and no longer “connected” and that our nerves were shot, we headed out to see Jock’s Place, an adventure suggested by our Lonely Planet guide. It appealed to me because we both lived underground and had done mining. Jock could tell us something about opal mining, which we knew nothing about and it would be cool inside, a big advantage here in White Cliffs. Jock was very loud, outgoing, a little deaf and admitted to being “quite mad”. He charges $10 a person for tours of his place. You can stay as long as you like and take all the pictures you want. Perfect! His main advice on opal mining is “Don’t get started.” You will either find nothing and be broke, or you will find precious opal, spend a lot of money on equipment and be broke. We had fun touring his place and learned a lot in the process.

On the surface of these mines you see holes surrounded by piles of white “mullock”, the waste from the mine. The waste was mostly raised by hand-cranked windlasses. People moved here in the 1890’s to try and scratch out a living in hard times. Precious opal didn’t catch on really until the latter part of the 20^th century so they were not getting rich. Precious opal has reflective surfaces of bright color embedded in the clear crystal of the rock. The greater the clarity, color, and variety of colors in the stone, the more valuable. Most opal is non-precious and doesn’t have the valuable color. White Cliffs is the only place in the world where “pineapple opal” is found. It is too valuable to sell retail. Only museums and high-end collectors can afford it. I took a picture of a pineapple opal at a local shop and got a lecture from the owner, though she let me keep the photo.

Living underground here was fairly natural and still is. It is cooler, the light clay is friable enough to dig with hand tools. Below 50 meters or so the ground is saturated and no one digs. The opal tends to lie in a horizontal layer so tunneling out from the main shaft is fairly level. Miners could fill in the old tunnels or use them for a home. Most of the homes in White Cliffs today seem to be in old mines or even new diggings. These include at least one hotel and some other accommodations. They spray the walls with a stabilizing coating when living there.

From Jocks place we drove to another hill that had the old solar power station at its base. It had large dishes, like satellite receivers, only polished like blue mirrors. They must have concentrated the heat from the sun and used that in a turbine. The station did power the town for awhile but was probably not profitable even if it had enough power. Now there is a museum there, which we did not visit. The residents were glad to have the power company bring in power lines so they didn’t have to listen to and smell each other’s diesel generators. Having electric lights in underground houses is a very good thing.

We visited a couple of shops. Outback Treasures had jewelry. We bought a necklace for Cheryl where the opalized vein was shaped like a creature. It was not all precious opal and only cost $85. Another necklace in the shop was a comparatively small, but very colorful cabochon of opal mounted in silver. It cost $3200. The other shop had very fine photography by Otto Rogge. He had a German accent and there was one display that held many awards he had won in his younger years for his work. He still takes marvelous pictures and prints them digitally. (www.ottophoto.com). He had a news story on the wall where I learned about pineapple opal.

The next morning, I went out to the opal fields by myself to see what I could find. I wandered around for awhile checking where others were digging. My only company was a lone kangaroo. On the way back to the car, I spotted a colorful rock in the road. It was my first opal. I began to realize that the flat areas where the weather had washed the clay off the rocks were better places to look than the mounds of dirt. Looking where the sun would reflect off of them, especially with darker red rocks, netted me several nice pieces in 15 or 20 minutes.

But the first day, I needed to get the plug on the trailer fixed so the lights and hopefully the refrigeration worked. Cheryl took on the thankless task of cleaning the fine red dust out of the kitchen. I was through before her, but failed to get the refrigeration going. I went to find some “take away” for dinner. Then we watched a foreign film DVD (loaned to us by Larry Geno) on my computer about a Spanish dairyman and his daughters- a little strange but somehow appropriate. We were glad to have electricity, laundry facilities and showers at the caravan park and be back on pavement for awhile.