The Opal Bug!!!!

We went to miner camps, with Len and his brother Ted, Glengarry, Sheepyard and Grawin.  All have pubs where the miners gather to take a break and tell lies about the finds.  Out where these camps are the rule is that they must move the extracted dirt into a central pile that is so large that you wonder how the land from where it was taken does not collapse.  There seems to be enough dirt in the pile to fill the Grand Canyon. There we people at the large pile that were “fossicking”  which is looking for Opals that might have been missed by the miner that sent the pile to the dump. We visited Harry Sack’s hut that was erected back in the 1920’s.  It had bark from a tree as part of the exterior walls.

Today, our last day in Lightning Ridge, we are going to a working mine to dig for the Opal bug.

Harry Sack’s mining hut and he lived here many years eating wild boar and pumpkin.

Lance walking up dirt dump and came upon people with buckets and shovels looking for opal that had been missed.  Many a good stone have been found among the rubble.

Glen Glarry Hilton Pub where we stopped for a beer.