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That's a bit of sad news. He was always a decent bloke to me. In my short moderating stint, he would always reach out and ask how I was going in my times of absence due to failing health. I hope wherever he is now, he's finding his happiness. Rest in peace Jaros.

Cheers kindly, Mackka. 👍

Hi Leigh, We had a bit of a thread up prior about the Pride Of Australia. My family played a small part in it's, albeit short, known life up here at Lightning Ridge. https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/threads/pride-of-australia-nugget.1972/ Kindest regards, Shauno.

My good friend Russ did a video on the Hudson Pear issue some time back. I had a run in with it myself many years ago which is featured in the video. Terrible stuff and I'm not sure how they're going to remove, or even reign it in at this stage? It's just about everywhere you go out here these...

Bit of a rough old time out there on the ridges. We copped the smoke pretty bad in town here from it too over several days on and off. Had to seal up the doors etc. as it was rough to breath in. A large, high precip. severe storm came right across the seam opal fields area about 2pm on Sunday...

Fantastic pieces FP! Great to someone taking a little care to clean them up and recognise their importance also. Nice looking vertebrae (3rd and 4th image down) there too! I see the price of opalised fossils has just skyrocketed due to a few recent sales and re-evaluations. Seems a bit of a...

G'day Suskya, That's a relatively easy overall ident on that piece. It's a largish piece of plant stem material and is fairly common out here as far as opalised fossil material goes. I have several pieces like that myself, ones I've dug and found over the years, though nothing of that size...

That's just a part of mining as a whole that is generally out of our control as a complete unknown, until known. If prior knowledge of the area is forgotten or absent then it generally should fall under risk assessment/management preparation. Nothing much can be done to mitigate it...

Hi all, We had the meeting here last Tuesday as LW said, and everyone was told to cease work until the full issue is resolved. Needles to say there weren't many happy faces in there. It affected pretty much every registered claim at this point and will take them many months-years to resolve. I...

That's good news to hear off the back of the initial post RM! I hope it all goes as smoothly as possible for your sister and the entire family at this time. All the best for the season and the new year. Kindest regards, Shauno.

When mining, we simply weld T-Pieces or a squared U-bar behind the ladder rungs. These keep the ladders around 5-6 inches (150mm) from the wall and would depend on the ladder usage how far out they need to be to still meet safety reqs. We usually place the T-Pieces on the rung immediately above...

G'day Hugh, For sure! I'm not all that certain about the logistics overall (which I had discussed with Russ quite a bit as we progressed the idea), but as a personal survey/mapping tool it would definitely be super handy. Just locating blind drill shafts or the claim border underground is a...

Yep, pretty close. Just off the top of my head, 30 cubic yards (24-26 cubic metres) would roughly equate to around the 20-24 tonne mark, though the discrepancies of moisture content in the opal clays and sandstones along with the hardness can cause it to vary quite a bit. The cubic area removed...

Cheers very much Mackka! The navigation is second nature when you're digging it all out. All the lights, air pipes and electrical cables point the way when working way down long drives. I have definitely been in claims where you'd almost need street signs to get around though! 😂 All the...

Cheers Rob! We're very much looking forward to catching up again soon! If the Opal Bug didn't grab you before, then it may well after the next trip! Haha! 😁 All the best. Shauno.

G'day Grubstake, Cheers for the kind words! All credit to Russ -which I'll definitely pass it on to him. The technology available currently is unreal! I can barely keep up with it now myself?! I worked the area you're seeing in that claim back in early 2003. I used to move about thirty cubic...

Hi all, Thought I'd share a little project that Russ and I have worked on for a couple weeks on and off while he's stuck here in the Ridge due to us being isolated from all the current flooding for around three weeks now. It all came together nicely from an idea we'd been throwing around for...

Sounds good. I'm here most of the year. I'll always make sure you can take a few bits and pieces of rough opal away to do with as you wish. 👍 My suggestion would be to visit around the time of the Opal Festival in late July to early August (that we've just had here). Just as a heads-up, you...

G'day Drachen, I started mining opal here at Lightning Ridge full-time at the age of 13 back in 1993 with my father (who began here in 1964). I had already spent a lot of time underground on and off gouging in many claims around all fields with my father from the age of 8 in relatively...

That could be a solution Rumply and one I've had in mind for some time as this isn't a recent change. I can see that there are one or two mitigating factors that would arise from that proposal. The first being that opal is far too sought after to be blindly dumping and if a good stone, say...